GIFT  OF 
SEELEY  W.  MUDD 

and 

GEORGE  I.  COCHRAN    MEYER  ELSASSER 
?AVt°cHN  *•  HAYNES    WILLIAM  L.  HONNOLD 
JAMES  R.  MARTIN         MRS.  JOSEPH  F.  SARTORI 

to  tin 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SOUTHERN  BRANCH 


This  book  is  DUE  on  thfe  fast  date  stamped  below 

Hrvt.  y.   » 

\  ' Jf~""lf 


UNIVERSITY  of  CALIFORNIA 


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ROGER  LUDLOW 


ROGER  LUDLOW 

THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER 


JOHN  M.  TAYLOR 

AUTHOR  OF  "  MAXIMILIAN  AND  CARLOTTA  " 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

Cbe  IRnicfccrbochcr  press 

1900 

Q  ~r,  1  7 


COPYRIGHT,  1900 

BY 
JOHN  M.  TAYLOR 


Ul*  ttnlcfcerbocliec  f>rec»,  Hew 


03 

H 

CLS 
03 


"  Short  would  be  the  fame  of  any  after  death,  if  their  history  did 
not  endure  by  being  written  in  the  book  of  the  clerk." — MASTER 
WAGE — Chronicle  of  the  Norman  Conquest. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

DECLARATIONS  OF  THE  FOREFATHERS    ...       1-4 

CHAPTER  I. 

Pilgrim  and  Puritan  —  Civil  and  Ecclesiastical  Despotism  — 
Puritanism,  its  Causes,  its  Opportunity — King  and  Com- 
monwealth— The  Expatriation — Political  and  Commercial 
Factors  —  Historical  Estimate  —  Retrospect  .  .  .  5-14 

CHAPTER  II. 

Early  Settlements  —  The  Plymouth  Tragedy  —  Emigration  of 
1630 — The  Crisis  —  Church  and  State —  Buckingham  and 
Laud — Royal  Charter — Pioneers  and  Leaders — Coming  of 
Ludlow  .........  15-23 

CHAPTER  III. 

Ludlow's  Ancestry  and  Family — Knights  of  the  Shire — Sir 
Edmund — Sir  Henry — Military  and  Parliamentary  Services 
— Relationship  by  Marriage  to  Governor  Endicott  and 
Chief  Justice  Popham — Student  at  Oxford  and  in  the  Inner 
Temple — Entries  of  the  Ludlow  Family  in  the  Inner 
Temple  Records — Race  of  Lawyers — John  White — The 
Dorchester  Company — Governor  and  Company  of  Massa- 
chusetts Bay  in  New  England — Ludlow  an  Assistant — 
Distinguished  Associates — Arrival  in  May,  1630  .  .  24-31 


vi  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

PACK 

Ludlow  in  Massachusetts — Leader  in  Public  Affairs — Stock- 
holder— Landowner — Auditor  of  Governor  Winthrop's  Ac- 
counts— Superintendent  of  Fortifications — Military  Com- 
missioner —  Magistrate  — Legislator  —  Deputy  Governor — 
The  Charter — Its  Contravention — Assumption  of  Power 
— Ludlow's  Protest — Magisterial  Sentiment — Church  Mem- 
bership Test — Popular  Remonstrance — Choice  of  Deputies 
— Cotton's  Postulate  .  32-44 

CHAPTER  V. 

Ludlow's  Attitude  as  an  Assistant — Change  of  Views — His  De- 
feat for  the  Governorship — Election  of  Haynes — Winthrop's 
Explanation —  Ludlow's  Objection  —  Overslaughed  —  Res- 
olutions to  Remove  to  Connecticut — The  Removal — Its 
Real  Cause — Ludlow,  Hooker,  Cotton,  Stone — Ministerial 
Interference  —  Magisterial  Arrogance  —  Court  and  Com- 
mons .........  45-49 

CHAPTER  VI. 

The  Valley  of  the  Long  River — Knowledge  of  its  Resources — 
Block — Wahginnacut — Oldham — The  Leave  to  Remove — 
Cambridge — Watertown — Dorchester — Commission  to  Gov- 
ern the  New  Colony — Ludlow  Made  its  Head — The  Agree- 
ment— Its  Text — Trumbull's  Definition  .  .  .  50-56 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Ludlow's  Initiative  —  Occupation  —  Conflicting  Interests — In- 
dians —  Dutch  —  Plymouth  Men  —  Saltonstall's  Company 
— Ludlow's  Firmness  and  Diplomacy — "  Ye  Controversie  " 
— Underbill's  Notice — Brewster's  Letter — Vane's  Demand 
— First  Comers — First  Winter — Sufferings  and  Losses — 


CONTENTS. 


Spring  of  1636 — Organization  of  Court — Laws  and  Ordi- 
nances— Important    Measures — Administration    of  Justice 

—  Ludlow  de  Facto   Governor   and   Chief   Justice  —  The 
Massachusetts  "  Agreement "  Fulfilled       .         .         .         57-6$ 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

A  Crisis  —  "The  Pequoitt  Potencie"  —  Indian  Atrocities  — 
Declaration  of  War — Civilization  v.  Barbarism — Mason's 
Expedition  —  The  Fort  Fight  —  Stone's  Thanksgiving  — 
Mason's  Battle  —  Ludlow's  Foresight  —  His  Letter  to 
Pynchon — The  Swamp  Fight  Uncas  and  Miantonomo — 
Fair  Unquowa — Ludlow's  Services,  1635-1639  .  .  66-72 

CHAPTER  IX. 

The  Fundamental  Orders  —  No  Record  —  None  Desired  — 
Opinions  of  Hoadley  and  Trumbull  —  At  their  Adoption 

—  Leaders — New  Chapter  in  History  —  Text  of  the  Con- 
stitution —  Law   of  the    People  —  Views    of   Jurists    and 
Historians  —  Bancroft  —  Palfrey  —  Fiske — Green — Tarbox 
— Bryce  —  Sanford  — Trumbull  —  Robinson  —  Johnston  — 
Hamersley  —  Bushnell  —  Day  —  Brinley    .         .         .         73-86 

CHAPTER  X. 

Who  Inspired  the  Constitution — Hooker — The  Sermon  —  Wol- 
cott's  Notes  —  Trumbull's  Interpretation  —  Doctrine  — 
Reasons — Historical  Estimates — Johnston — Fiske — Elliott 

—  Twichell  —  Walker  —  Who    Wrote    the   Constitution  — 
Ludlow — His  Qualifications — Opinions — Hollister — Tuttle 
-<-  Stiles  —  Bancroft  —  Schenck  —  Trumbull  —  Walker  — 
Elliott  —  Hawes  —  Robinson  —  Brinley  —  Beers  —  Waters 

—  Hooker  Visioned  and  Ludlow  Wrote  the  Fundamental 
Orders 87-96 


viii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XL 

PAGE 

The  Code  of  1650 — Ludlow's  "  Body  of  Lawes" — Requested  to 
Draft  it  by  General  Court — The  Criminal  Code — Massa- 
chusetts Body  of  Liberties — Differences — Code  Four  Years 
in  Preparation — What  it  Was — Its  Recognition  in  Legis- 
lation— Its  Intrinsic  Merits — Witnesses  to  its  Authorship 
and  Value — De  Tocqueville  —  Trumbull  —  Day — Brinsley 
— Hamersley — Robinson — Schenck — Stiles  .  .  97-105 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Framer  of  the  Constitution  and  the  Code — Other  Duties  and 
Honors — Magistrate — Commissioner — Deputy  Governor — 
At  Windsor  —  Absence  from  Court  —  At  Pequannocke — 
Purchase  from  the  Indians — Fairfield — Reprimand — Plea 
of  Justification  —  Court's  Sanction  —  Advantage  of  the 
Purchase  106-113 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Dutch  Claims  in  Connecticut  —  Confederation  —  Johnston's 
Opinion — Contention  1635-1664 — Indian  Allies  —  Diplo- 
macy —  Commissioners'  Charges  —  Stuyvesant's  Denial — 
Refusal  of  Massachusetts — Nullification — Historical  Inci- 
dents—  Rhode  Island — Underbill — Petition  to  Cromwell 
— Ships  and  Troops — Peace  Declaration  .  .  .  114-121 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Virginia  Massacre — Delaware  Colonists — Mohawks — French  in 
Canada — Six  Nations — French  Embassy  to  New  England 
— Treachery  and  Intrigue — Rivalry  of  Indian  Sachems — 
Threats,  Plots,  and  Murders — Apprehension  in  Border 
Towns  —  Alarm  of  the  Colonists  —  War  Preparations — 


CONTENTS.  ix 

PAG* 

Rebellion  at  Stamford — Connecticut  and  New  Haven  Re- 
fuse Assistance — Fairfield  Raises  Troops — Ludlow  Chosen 
Commander — Reasons  for  his  Action — Notice  to  Authorities 
—Their  Disapproval .......  122-133 

CHAPTER  XV. 

Witchcraft — Ancestors'  Convictions  — English  Law  —  Persecu- 
tion— King  James —  More — Fuller  — Granvil  —  Massachu- 
setts— Mather — Witchcraft  Laws — Capital  Crime — Good- 
man— Knapp — Bassett — Accusation  of  Ludlow — Staples  v. 
Ludlow  —  The  Charges  —  The  Defence — Fines  —  Subse- 
quent Indictment  of  Plaintiff's  Wife  for  Familiarity  with 
Satan  .........  134-140 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Ludlow's  Departure  from  Connecticut — Its  Causes — Day's 
Statement — Arrival  in  England — Return  to  Ireland — Set- 
tlement at  Dublin — Services  There — Cromwell's  Preference 
—  Magistrate  —  Commissioner  of  Forfeited  Estates  — 
Master  in  Chancery — His  Associates — Pepys — Corbett — 
Cooke  —  Reading  —  Allen  —  Carteret  —  Order  of  Lord 
Deputy  and  Council — Master  in  Chancery — Last  Record 
of  Service,  December  16,  1659 — Death  of  his  Wife — Resi- 
dent of  St.  Michan's  Parish  in  1664,  at  Age  of  74 — Esti- 
mate of  his  Qualities  and  Achievements  —  Brinley's  In- 
cription  —  The  State  Capitol  —  Its  Honor  to  Hooker, 
Davenport,  Trumbull,  Sherman — Its  Duty  to  Ludlow — 
Its  Opportunity.  .......  141-162 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES 163-166 


DECLARATIONS  OF  THE  FOREFATHERS 


DEC  LARA  TIONS. 

Now  next  after  this  heavenly  peace  with  God  and 
our  consciences,  we  are  carefully  to  provide  for  peace 
with  all  men,  what  in  us  lieth,  especially  with  our  asso- 
ciates, and  for  that  watchfulness  which  must  be  had 
that  we  neither  at  all  in  ourselves  do  give,  no,  nor  easily 
take  offence  being  given  by  others.  —  From  ROBINSON'S 
Letter  to  the  Pilgrims, 

Fifthly  and  lastly,  and  which  was  not  the  least,  a 
great  hope  and  inward  zeal  they  had  of  laying  some  good 
foundation,  or  at  least  to  make  some  way  thereunto  for 
the  propagating  and  advancement  of  the  Gospel  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Christ  in  those  remote  parts  of  the  world  ; 
yea,  although  they  should  be  but  as  stepping-stones  unto 
others  for  the  performance  of  so  great  a  work.  —  From 
New  England's  Memorial, 

The  desire  of  carrying  the  Gospel  of  Christ  unto 
those  foreign  parts,  amongst  those  people  that  as  yet 
have  had  no  knowledge  nor  taste  of  God,  as  also  to  pro- 
cure unto  themselves  and  others  a  quiet  and  comfortable 
habitation,  were,  among  other  things,  the  inducements 
unto  those  undertakers  of  the  then  hopeful  and  now  ex- 
perimentally known  good  enterprise  for  plantations  in 
New  England,  to  set  afoot  and  prosecute  the  same. — 
From  MOURT'S  Relation. 

A  removal  from  a  place  where  the  ministers  of  God 
are  unjustly  inhibited  from  the  execution  of  their  func- 
tions, to  a  place  where  they  more  freely  execute  the 

3 


4  ROGER  LUDLOW 

same.  — From  RICHARD  MATHER'S  Six  Reasons  for  Re- 
moval, 

In  the  name  of  God  :  Amen.  We  whose  names  are 
underwritten  .  .  .  having  undertaken,  for  the  glory 
of  God  and  the  advancement  of  the  Christian  faith,  and 
the  honour  of  our  king  and  country,  a  voyage  to  plant 
the  first  colony  in  the  northern  parts  of  Virginia,  do  by 
these  presents  solemnly  and  mutually,  in  the  presence  of 
God  and  one  another,  covenant  and  combine  ourselves 
together  into  a  civil  body  politic,  for  our  better  ordering 
and  preservation,  and  furtherance  of  the  ends  aforesaid  ; 
and  by  virtue  hereof  to  enact,  constitute,  and  frame  such 
just  and  equal  laws,  ordinances,  acts,  constitutions,  and 
offices,  from  time  to  time,  as  shall  be  thought  most  meet 
and  convenient  for  the  general  good  of  the  colony,  unto 
which  we  promise  all  due  submission  and  obedience.  — 
From  The  "  Mayflower  "  Compact. 

Whereas,  we  all  came  into  these  parts  of  America  with 
one  and  the  same  ayme,  namely,  to  advance  the  King- 
dom of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  enjoy  the  Gospel 
in  purity  and  peace.  —  From  Articles  of  Confederation 
(1643). 


ROGER  LUDLOW 

THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER. 


CHAPTER   I. 

Pilgrim  and  Puritan — Civil  and  Ecclesiastical  Despotism — Puritan- 
ism, its  Causes,  its  Opportunity — King  and  Commonwealth — 
The  Expatriation — Political  and  Commercial  Factors — Histori- 
cal Estimate — Retrospect. 

PILGRIM  and  Puritan  speak,  in  these  solemn 
declarations,  of  the  forefathers.  They  are 
weighted  with  their  convictions  and  purposes 
in  their  conscientious  revolt  against  the  abuse 
of  human  authority  in  religion,  and  of  royal 
prerogative  in  the  state.  They  mark  the  chief 
events  in  the  historic  exodus,  from  the  farewell 
at  Delft  Haven  to  the  birth  of  the  colonial 
league.  They  ring  the  challenge  of  the  man- 
at-arms,  and  breathe  the  prayer  of  the  man  of 
God. 


6  ROGER  LUDLOW 

"  Once  more  to  us  a  voice  is  sent, 
Crying  from  out  the  wild,  '  Repent  ! 
Repent  !  and  evermore  repent  ! ' ' 

They  tell  of  the  faith  of  Robinson  and  Hooker, 
the  piety  of  Brewster,  the  diplomacy  of  Wins- 
low  and  Winthrop,  the  valor  of  Standish  and 
Mason  ;  they  define  the  cardinal  motives  of 
the  strong  and  masterful  men  among  the 
twenty-six  thousand  people  who  came  over 
from  Old  England  to  New  England  from  1620 
to  1640. 

And  these  motives  had  their  origin  in  the 
ecclesiastical  and  civil  despotism  of  the  Eng- 
lish Church  and  Throne,  with  its  rancorous 
doctrinal  hatreds,  which  found  chief  expression 
in  the  Acts  of  Supremacy  and  Uniformity, 
and  its  enforcement  in  the  Courts  of  High 
Commission  and  Star  Chamber. 

Nonconformist,  Independent,  Separatist, 
but  witness  the  evolution  of  the  once  loyal 
churchman  into  the  recusant  who  knew  no 
compromise  and  halted  at  no  hardships.  "  Do 
I  mak  the  bishops  ?  Do  I  mak  the  judges  ? 
Then  God  wauns,  I  mak  what  likes  me,  law 
and  Gospel,"  said  King  James.  And  it  was 
this  law  and  this  gospel,  construed  and  ex- 
pounded by  the  royal  will  and  pleasure,  and 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  7 

offering  alike  to  priest  and  layman  the  bitter 
chalice  of  obedience,  that  in  part  invited,  and 
at  last  compelled,  the  sacrifices  of  the  expa- 
triation. 

To  intolerance  and  persecution  in  matters  of 
belief  and  worship  were  added  the  hateful  en- 
croachments upon  the  civil  and  political  rights 
of  the  people  exemplified  in  the  royal  conceit 
"  that  it  is  presumption  and  high  contempt  in 
a  subject,  to  dispute  what  a  king  can  do." 
Proroguing  Parliaments  without  reason,  reign- 
ing without  them,  levying  duties  against  re- 
monstrance, raising  revenue  by  forced  loans 
and  benevolences,  denying  the  redress  of 
grievances  and  the  right  to  discuss  state  ques- 
tions, were  the  answers  of  kingship  to  the 
popular  declarations  that  parliamentary  privi- 
leges were  the  birthright  of  the  people ;  that 
lawmaking  and  usurpations  of  authority  were 
proper  questions  of  debate ;  and  that  mem- 
bers of  Parliament  of  right  should  have  free- 
dom of  speech  :  kingly  pride  and  domination 
against  the  patriotism  of  Hampden,  Pym, 
Ludlow,  Eliot,  Coke,  and  Selden ;  the  bigotry 
and  arrogance  of  the  Stuarts  against  the  resist- 
less uplifting  of  the  English  people  to  a  higher 
moral  and  intellectual  freedom. 


8  ROGER  LUDLOW 

"  Two  doctrines  in  religion  arrayed  themselves  each 
against  the  other.  Two  parties  in  the  State  entered 
upon  a  great  contention.  Two  theories  of  life  and  con- 
duct stood  opposed.  All  things  tended  toward  a  vast 
disruption  ;  and  in  the  strife  of  King  and  Common- 
wealth, of  Puritan  and  Anglican,  that  disruption  was 
accomplished." 

Puritanism  found  its  opportunity  and  service 
in  this  great  conflict ;  and  at  last,  from  a  ma- 
jority content  with  a  victory  over  kingcraft 
secured  by  law,  there  came  a  resolute  minority 
to  write  a  new  chapter  in  the  world's  history, 
and  armed  with  the  qualities  which  in  all  times 
have  marked  the  pioneers  in  adventure,  dis- 
covery, and  civilization.  It  is  the  typical  man 
of  this  minority  who  in  Parliament  and  con- 
venticle, in  camp  and  field,  in  council-chamber 
and  meeting-house,  gave  character,  inspiration, 
perpetuity,  to  the  historic  movement  which  has 
been  called  the  last  of  our  great  Heroisms. 
Curtis  thus  describes  him  :  "The  Puritan  was 
hard,  severe,  sour,  sober,  and  bigoted ;  but 
God  sifted  three  kingdoms  to  find  him  where- 
with to  plant  a  free  republic." 

"  God  had  sifted  three  kingdoms  to  find  the  wheat  for 

His  planting, 

Then   had  sifted  the  wheat,  as  the  living  seed  of   a 
nation."  — Courtship  of  Miles  Standish. 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  9 

Artist,  poet,  historian,  and  philosopher  have 
pictured  him  in  diverse  colors  and  attitudes, — 
malcontent,  fanatic,  hero,  martyr ;  but  no  one 
in  all  history  has  questioned  his  sincerity  or 
courage.  He  was  a  radical  from  his  environ- 
ment, from  intensity  of  will  and  performance, 
and  by  sure  degrees  became  a  leader  in  the 
revolution  which  both  in  its  vigor  and  its  de- 
cadence gave  to  the  world  those  men  and 
women  of  heroic  mould,  ordained  an  aristoc- 
racy, not  by  decree  of  kings,  but  by  virtue  of 
their  own  moral  strength.  And  having  kept 
the  faith  through  years  of  bitterness  and  sacri- 
fice, they  looked  for  the  final  salvation  of  their 
cause  only  in  a  new  order  of  things  overseas. 

The  beginnings  of  this  great  task  fell  to  a 
few  winnowed  from  the  Puritan  ranks  by  dif- 
ferences of  doctrine,  of  politics,  and  modes  of 
worship,  and  given  their  unique  place  in  his- 
tory as  Separatists.  They  believed  not  in  the 
reformation  of  errors  and  abuses  in  the  Church 
from  within,  nor  in  civil  and  religious  freedom 
under  the  laws  of  England  as  then  admin- 
istered ;  and  they  finally  sought  their  reme- 
dies in  remonstrance,  in  endurance,  in  exile, 
"  that  especially  the  seed  of  Abraham  his  ser- 
vant, and  the  children  of  Jacob  his  chosen, 


ro  ROGER  LUDLOW 

might  remember  his  marvellous  works  in  the 
beginning  and  progress  of  the  planting  of  New 
England,  his  wonders,  and  the  judgments  of 
his  mouth." 

Their  independence  of  creed  and  polity, 
involving  loss  of  property,  social  ostracism, 
and  imprisonment,  vitalized  by  the  teaching 
and  example  of  Robinson,  Bradford,  Brew- 
ster,  and  others,  led  to  the  removal  and  stay 
at  Amsterdam  and  Leyden ;  and  from  these 
colonists  came  the  fathers  of  the  republic,  the 
Pilgrims,  the  settlers  at  Plymouth  in  1620.  Is 
it  not  well  certified  in  prayer  and  hymn  and 
league  and  solemn  covenant,  that  they  came 
hither  "to  advance  the  Kingdom  of  Christ, 
and  propagate  and  enjoy  the  gospel  in  purity 
and  peace  "  ? 

But  other  motives  than  religious  ones  were 
deeply  rooted  in  the  composite  character  of 
the  colonist.  Civil  freedom  was  as  dear  to 
him  as  his  religious  freedom  ;  in  fact,  it  was  an 
integral  part  of  it.  Constitutions,  codes,  bodies 
of  liberties,  all  witness  his  aggressive  demand 
for  recognition. 

"  It  is  no  matter  what  was  his  political  creed,  or  his  re- 
ligious creed,  whether  cavalier  or  roundhead,  puritan  or 
churchman,  the  emigrant  was  an  Englishman  ;  and  every 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  11 

Englishman  then  and  since  held  the  faith  that  liberty 
was  his  of  right,  and  when  liberty  is  put  on  the  ground  of 
right,  it  implies  the  assertion  that  government  must  be 
founded  on  right,  and  that  liberty  belongs  to  other  men 
also  ;  and  that  implies  government  by  law.  Nullum  jus 
sine  officio,  nullum  officium  sine  jure." — HOAR  :  The  Law- 
yer and  the  State. 

Any  analysis  of  the  causes  of  the  emigration 
must  also  take  account  of  another  factor  coup- 
led with  the  religious  and  political  ones,  —  the 
adventures  for  profit  embodied  in  the  trading 
charters,  exploited  by  the  man  of  commercial 
instinct  and  enterprise,  who  wrote  his  name  in 
compact  and  article  with  the  minister  and  the 
captain,  and  whose  history  was  not  spread  on 
the  record  of  court  or  church.  The  Pilgrim 
with  his  conscience  and  creed,  and  the  Puritan 
with  his  Bible  and  blunderbuss,  are  but  foremost 
figures  in  the  ranks  of  freemen  hot-foot  for 
their  political  rights,  adventurers  of  the  trading 
companies,  soldiers  of  fortune,  yeomen,  all  truly 
representative  of  the  complex  quality  of  the 
colonization. 

After  the  Pilgrims  came  thousands  from  the 
mother  country,  among  them  men  of  station 
and  estate, — clergymen,  soldiers,  merchants, 
landowners,  courtiers,  students  of  the  univer- 
sities and  inns  of  court.  Cotton  and  Hooker, 


12  ROGER  LUDLOW 

Stone  and  Davenport,  Endicott,  Dudley,  and 
Winthrop,  Vane,  Gardiner,  and  Underbill, 
Eaton,  Haynes,  and  Goodyear,  Wolcott  and 
Wyllys,  —  were  they  not  apostles  of  a  catholic 
faith  in  government  of  the  people,  by  the  peo- 
ple, and  of  a  new  civilization,  free  from  the 
domination  of  the  English  Church  and  State  ? 
These  men, — Pilgrim  and  Puritan, — their  an- 
tecedents, and  their  historic  mission,  are  thus 
estimated : 


"  On  December  21,  1620,  the  little  band  landed  on  a 
rock  on  the  western  side  of  the  bay,  held  in  the  circling 
arm  of  Cape  Cod,  and  called  the  place  Plymouth.  It 
was  the  founding  of  a  nation  on  that  bleak,  wintry  day  ; 
and  posterity  has  never  failed  thus  far  to  recognize  and 
commemorate  it.  They  seem  to  have  known  it,  too, 
those  Pilgrims  of  Plymouth.  They  were  very  humble 
folk  for  the  most  part,  poor  and  untitled,  artisans,  fisher- 
men, and  farmers  from  the  villages  of  East  Anglia.  .  .  . 
Bradford  and  his  friends  had  '  empire  in  their  brains,' 
even  if  they  were  not  clearly  conscious  of  it.  ... 
They  did  not  come  merely  to  make  money  or  get  a  home 
in  a  new  land.  Even  the  high  purpose  of  securing  a 
place  where  they  could  worship  God  unharmed,  and  in 
their  own  fashion,  was  not  their  only  object.  They 
came  to  establish  a  state  which  should  cover  all  these 
things,  but  which  should  also  be  a  commonwealth  where 
those  who  made  it  ruled  it,  and  not  kings  or  priests  or 
nobles  whom  accident  placed  over  them.  .  .  .  Eight 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  13 

years  after  the  landing  at  Plymouth  there  came  another 
immigration  to  New  England.  It  was  made  up  of  men 
of  the  same  race  as  those  of  Plymouth,  and  was  started 
by  a  like  impulse  ;  but  there  the  resemblance  ceased. 
They  were  not  adventurers  come  to  seek  an  Eldorado  ; 
they  did  not  come  to  trade,  as  the  Dutch  came  to  New 
York.  They  were  not  Separatists,  but  members  of  the 
Church  of  England  who  had  sought  to  reform  the  abuses 
of  that  church,  and,  failing  at  home,  crossed  the  sea  to 
preserve  what  they  believed  to  be  the  true  faith.  They 
were  Puritans,  men  of  the  country  party.  Their  leaders 
were  of  the  class  that  produced  Pym  and  Hampden  and 
Cromwell.  .  .  .  Their  clergy  were  of  the  estab- 
lished church,  deprived  members  often,  graduates  of 
Oxford  and  Cambridge,  scholars  and  preachers  stern 
and  strong.  .  .  .  The  body  of  the  immigrants  were 
yeomen  and  farmers  and  workingmen,  own  brothers  to 
those  who  filled  the  ranks  of  Cromwell's  Ironsides  and 
dashed  to  pieces  the  cavaliers  of  Rupert  and  the  hardy 
Scotchmen  of  Leslie.  ...  It  was  a  vigorous  de- 
mocracy, and  full  of  vitality."  —  LODGE  :  The  Colonial 
Period. 

Amid  the  solemn  cadences  of  the  Recessional 
— that  hymn  of  warning  and  prophecy  —  does 
not  the  attuned  ear  catch,  across  the  centuries, 
the  vaporings  of  kings,  the  challenges  of  the 
commoners,  the  clash  of  arms  in  the  onsets  at 
Worcester,  Dunbar,  Naseby,  Edgehill,  Mars- 
ton,  and  Newbury,  whenever  in  men's  minds 
ran  the  refrain, — 


14  ROGER  LUDLOW 

"  Then  be  stout  of  heart  when  the  field  is  set 

And  the  smoke  is  hanging  low, 
And  the  pike-heads  shine  along  the  line 
To  meet  the  advancing  foe  "  ; 

the  anathemas  of  Laud ;  the  murderous  judg- 
ments of  Jeffries ;  the  regicides'  decree ;  the 
prayers  of  priests ;  the  cries  of  martyrs ;  the 
echoes  of  the  Puritan  spirit  which  underlies 
the  destiny  of  the  English-speaking  peoples, 
whether  of  kingdom,  empire,  or  republic  ? 

"  God  of  our  fathers,  known  of  old, 
Lord  of  our  far-flung  battle-line, 
Beneath  whose  awful  Hand  we  hold 

Dominion  over  palm  and  pine  : 
Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  with  us  yet, 
Lest  we  forget !     Lest  we  forget !  " 

Yea,  of  that  Puritanism  of  which  Carlyle,  in 
The  Hero  a  King,  said  : 

"It  stood  preaching  in  its  bare  pulpit  with  nothing 
but  the  Bible  in  its  hand  "  ;  and  again :  "  It  has  got 
weapons  and  sinew,  and  it  has  firearms,  war  navies  ;  it 
has  cunning  in  its  fingers,  strength  in  its  right  arm,  it  can 
steer  ships,  fell  forests,  remove  mountains,  it  is  one  of 
the  strongest  things  under  this  sun  at  present." 


CHAPTER  II. 

Early  Settlements — The  Plymouth  Tragedy — Emigration  of  1630— 
The  Crisis — Church  and  State — Buckingham  and  Laud — Royal 
Charter — Pioneers  and  Leaders — Coming  of  Ludlow. 

IN  the  bitterness  and  desolation  of  winter  at 
Plymouth,  in  the  face  of  sickness  and  pesti- 
lence and  death,  these  "very  humble  folk,"  the 
little  company  from  the  Mayflower,  set  up  the 
standard  of  the  new  "  undertakings."  What 
tragedy  has  been  so  simply  told  as  in  these 
lines  from  Bradford's  journal  ? 

"  In  two  or  three  months'  time  half  of  this  company 
died,  especially  in  January  and  February  ;  being  the 
depth  of  winter,  wanting  houses  and  other  comforts  ; 
being  infected  with  the  scurvy  and  other  diseases  which 
this  long  voyage  and  their  incommodate  condition  had 
brought  upon  them  ;  so  as  there  died  sometimes  two, 
sometimes  three,  on  a  day,  in  the  aforesaid  time,  that  of 
one  hundred  and  odd  persons  scarce  fifty  remained." 

On  this  spot,  consecrated  by  the  purest  hero- 
ism, Carver  and  Bradford,  Allerton,  Winslow, 

15 


16  ROGER  LUDLOW 

Standish,  and  their  associates  made  religious 
and  political  covenants  and  contracts  of  trade, 
established  laws  and  ordinances,  and  chose 
officers  to  execute  them,  imposed  taxes,  insti- 
tuted religious  services,  formed  military  com- 
panies, held  the  Indians  at  bay,  neutralized 
conspiracies  at  home  and  abroad,  banished 
malcontents  and  mischief  -  makers,  allotted 
lands  in  severally,  and  so  in  due  time  laid 
the  foundations  of  a  government  rooted  in 
the  verities  wherewithal  men  are  made  truly 
free  and  equal  before  the  law.  Meanwhile 
other  colonists  had  made  homes  elsewhere. 
Fishermen  from  West  England  built  their 
huts  at  Cape  Ann  ;  planters  settled  at  various 
places,  notably  Gray  and  Knight  at  Nan- 
tasket,  Maverick  at  Noddle's  Island,  Jeffrey 
at  Winnisimmett,  Walford  at  Wishawum,  and 
Blackstone  at  Shawmut.  Lyford,  the  pious 
renegade,  and  Oldham,  "  a  chief  stickler  in  the 
faction  among  the  particulars,"  who  was  later 
expelled  from  the  colony,  the  authorities  hav- 
ing "  appointed  a  gard  of  musketeers  wch  he 
was  to  pass  throu,  and  every  one  was  ordered 
to  give  him  a  thump  .  .  .  with  ye  but 
end  of  his  musket,"  also  settled  at  Nantasket. 
Morton,  "of  Clifford's  Inn  Gent,"  author  of 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  i7 

the  screed,  The  New  English  Canaan,  with  a 
band  of  roysterers,  gathered  at  Wollaston ; 
and  at  their  headquarters,  called  "  Merry 
Mount,"  they  started  "a  school  of  atheisme," 
set  up  a  maypole,  "  and  did  quaff  strong  wa- 
ters, and  act  as  if  they  had  anew  revived  and 
celebrated  the  feasts  of  ye  Roman  Goddess 
Flora,  or  the  beastly  practices  of  ye  madd 
Bachanalians."  They  sold  rum  and  muskets 
to  the  Indians,  in  defiance  of  orders,  until 
Standish  with  his  escort  laid  his  strong  hand 
upon  them  and  dispersed  the  gang  of  revellers, 
and  sent  Morton  into  England. 

In  ten  years  from  the  landing  of  the  Pil- 
grims, settlements  had  been  made  at  Salem, 
Charlestown,  Dorchester,  Boston,  Watertown, 
Mystic,  and  Lynn.  John  Endicott,  destined 
to  high  honor  in  colonial  annals,  and  his  com- 
pany, with  a  grant  from  the  Council  for  New 
England  to  John  White,  rector  of  Trinity 
Church,  Dorchester,  and  his  associates,  of  land 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  in  length,  and 
in  width  from  the  river  Merrimac  to  the  river 
Charles,  made  their  homes  at  Salem  in  1629; 
and  these  were  the  most  notable  of  the 
"  Newcomers "  until  the  great  emigration  of 
1630. 


i8  ROGER  LUDLOW 

Many  causes  combined  to  invite  and  compel 
the  Puritan  emigration  in  this  year.  The  crisis 
had  come  ;  choice  must  be  made  between  abso- 
lute monarchy  at  home  and  liberty  abroad. 
Certain  historical  facts  bring  into  clear  light 
the  exact  situation  of  affairs.  The  Pilgrim 
colonization  had  been  watched  with  intense 
interest  by  the  Puritans.  Governor  Bradford 
had  wisely  said  :  "  The  light  here  kindled  hath 
shone  to  many,  in  some  sort  to  our  whole 
nation."  When  King  Charles  came  to  the 
throne,  he  was  deemed  a  sound  Protestant, 
wise  enough  to  avoid  his  father's  mistakes  and 
respect  the  popular  will.  But  Buckingham 
was  his  closest  friend,  and  Laud  his  religious 
counsellor.  In  the  face  of  warning  and  re- 
monstrance, and  despite  the  opposition  of 
Parliament,  these  were  some  of  the  royal  per- 
formances :  The  King  elevated  to  bishoprics 
Montague  and  Mainwaring,  whom  Parliament 
had  sent  to  prison  for  seditious  utterances  ; 
Eliot  and  Hampden  were  imprisoned  for  their 
defence  of  the  rights  of  the  people ;  within 
four  years  he  dissolved  three  Parliaments  for 
refusal  to  yield  to  his  unlawful  demands ;  after 
giving  a  hypocritical  assent  to  the  historic 
Petition  of  Right,  he  deliberately  violated 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  19 

every  promise ;  arbitrary  penalties  were  im- 
posed ;  monopolies  were  sold  ;  customs  duties 
were  collected  without  authority  of  law ;  pro- 
tests were  met  by  fines,  and  loans  demanded 
from  the  freeholders  in  every  shire. 

Laud  supplemented  the  King's  actions,  in 
the  madness  of  ecclesiastical  zeal.  He  sev- 
ered the  relations  between  the  continental  re- 
formed churches  and  the  Church  of  England ; 
he  withdrew  freedom  of  worship  from  the 
Protestant  refugees,  and  banished  those  who 
would  not  conform  to  the  ritual ;  lectureships 
were  suppressed ;  the  right  to  appoint  their 
own  ministers  in  Puritan  parishes  was  de- 
nied ;  the  importation  of  Genevan  Bibles  was 
prohibited ;  and  ministers  were  deprived  of 
their  livings  for  refusing  to  read  a  declaration 
in  favor  of  Sunday  sports.  Thus  State  and 
Church  were  at  one  in  the  tyranny  which  at 
last  ripened  into  the  Great  Rebellion. 

In  the  height  of  this  contest  the  chief  emigra- 
tion to  New  England  began.  At  Cambridge,  in 
1629,  Winthrop,  Saltonstall,  Pynchon,  Dudley, 
and  others  obtained  the  Royal  Charter  to 
"  The  Government  and  Company  of  Massa- 
chusetts Bay  in  New  England."  And — under 
the  mighty  impulse  of  the  actual  transfer  of 


20  ROGER  LUDLOW 

the  charter  to  the  new  country  by  the  royal 
consent  —  in  four  years  thereafter,  four  thou- 
sand Englishmen  had  come  over  under  this 
company's  auspices ;  and  around  the  shores 
of  the  bay  many  permanent  settlements  had 
been  made. 

Strong  characters  were  these  among  the 
early  colonists, —  Carver,  Brewster,  Bradford, 
Prince,  and  Standish ;  Winthrop,  "  patient  in 
toil,  serene  amidst  alarms "  ;  Dudley,  honest, 
"of  approved  wisdom  and  godliness,"  but  ar- 
rogant and  intolerant  in  counsel  and  debate,  of 
whom  his  latest  eulogist  says,  in  the  words  of 
Tacitus  respecting  Agricola :  "  Scorning  to 
disguise  his  sentiments,  he  acted  always  with 
a  generous  warmth  at  the  hazard  of  making 
enemies " ;  Cotton,  the  silenced  rector  of  St. 
Botolph's,  who,  as  he  said,  loved  to  sweeten 
his  mouth  with  a  piece  of  Calvin  before  going 
to  sleep,  who  would  make  the  magisterial  rule 
exclusive  and  perpetual,  whose  crucial  test  of 
citizenship  was  church-membership,  and  yet,  to 
his  admirers,  "  Than  him  in  flesh  scarce  dwelt 
a  better  one "  ;  Eliot,  the  enthusiast  and 
scholar,  "whose  abilities  and  acceptations  in 
the  ministry  did  excel,"  with  his  message  of 
peace  to  the  Indians  ;  Mason,  Gardiner,  Un- 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  21 

derhill,  and  Stoughton,  soldiers  of  distinction ; 
Hooker,  Cotton's  friend,  the  clerical  states- 
man,— 

"  Deep  was  his  knowledge,  judgment  was  acute, 
His  doctrines  solid  which  none  could  dispute. 

"  Sweet  peace  he  gave  to  such  as  were  contrite  ; 
Their  darkness  sad  he  turned  to  joyous  light. 

"  Each  ear  that  heard  him  said,  He  spake  to  me, 
So  piercing  was  his  holy  ministry  "  ; 

Bellingham,  the  stern  moralist  from  his  own 
point  of  view — "The  Quaker  at  his  thunder 
fled "  ;  Vane,  the  colonial  champion  at  home 
and  abroad  ;  Roger  Williams,  who,  with  all  his 
heresies,  almost  alone  among  the  men  of  his 
day  conceived  the  present  idea  of  the  State  as 
limited  in  its  powers,  and  saw  no  divine  right 
in  the  civil  authority  to  crush  so-called  reli- 
gious errors;  Haynes,  "of  large  estate  and 
larger  affections,"  whom  Massachusetts  and 
Connecticut  crowned  with  highest  honors ; 
Winthrop,  Jr.,  scholar  and  Puritan  patriot; 
Eaton,  the  man  of  affairs  and  diplomat,  colo- 
nial Governor  at  New  Haven  ;  Davenport,  the 
saintly  theocrat ;  Stone,  Hooker's  successor  as 
teacher  of  the  church  at  Hartford : 


22  ROGER  LUDLOW 

"  A  stone  for  kingly  David's  use  so  fit. 
As  would  not  fail  Goliah's  front  to  hit "  ; 

Norton,  Cotton's  successor  at  Boston,  com- 
panion of  Bradstreet  in  his  mission  to  England  : 

"  Of  a  more  heavenly  strain  his  notions  were, 
More  pure,  sublime,  scholastical  and  clear  ; 
More  like  the  Apostles  Paul  and  John,  I  wist, 
Was  this  our  orthodox  evangelist "  ; 

and  Wyllys,  Hopkins,  Steele,  Wolcott,  and 
others,  ministers,  magistrates,  legislators,  sol- 
diers, to  whom  their  countrymen  entrusted  the 
vital  questions  of  Church  and  State  in  the 
colonial  days. 

Into  this  company  of  masterful  men,  to  deal 
with  the  greatest  and  gravest  principles  of 
government,  and  at  some  time  to  measure  his 
own  qualities  and  opinions  with  theirs  in  the 
fierce  light  of  intense  theological  and  political 
controversies,  to  battle  for  the  recognition  of 
great  constitutional  principles,  to  embody  them 
by  precedent,  statute,  and  ordinance  in  the 
jurisprudence  of  a  new  civilization  in  his  twen- 
ty-four years  of  service  to  Massachusetts  and 
Connecticut,  came,  with  a  notable  company 
in  the  ship  Mary  and  John  ("  Mr.  Ludlowe's 
vessel"),  in  May,  1630, 

ROGER    LUDLOW. 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  23 

So  much  of  retrospect,  of  historical  truth, 
and  of  sentiment,  which  is  the  crystallization 
of  history,  of  the  judgment  of  men  and  their 
achievements  by  their  contemporaries,  seems 
germane  to  the  study  of  a  character  in  itself 
typical  of  the  Puritan  movement  and  its  mo- 
tives, both  religious  and  political. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Ludlow's  Ancestry  and  Family — Knights  of  the  Shire — Sir  Edmund — 
Sir  Henry — Military  and  Parliamentary  Services — Relationship 
by  Marriage  to  Governor  Endicott  and  Chief  Justice  Popham — 
Student  at  Oxford  and  in  the  Inner  Temple — Entries  of  the 
Ludlow  Family  in  the  Inner  Temple  Records — Race  of  Lawyers 
— John  White — The  Dorchester  Company — Governor  and  Com- 
pany of  Massachusetts  Bay  in  New  England — Ludlow  an  Assist- 
ant— Distinguished  Associates — Arrival  in  May,  1630. 

LUDLOW  came  of  an  ancient  English  family, 
very  simply  described  by  its  illustrious  son, 
Sir  Edmund  Ludlow,  in  speaking  of  it  as 

"  originally  known  in  Shropshire,  and  from  thence  trans- 
planted into  the  county  of  Wilts,  where  his  ancestors 
possessed  such  an  estate  as  placed  them  in  the  first  rank 
of  gentlemen,  and  gave  them  just  pretences  to  stand 
candidates  to  represent  the  county  in  Parliament  as 
Knights  of  the  Shire,  which  honor  they  seldom  failed  to 
attain." 

All  these  forebears  and  kinsmen  were  "  those 
whom  their  race  and  bloud,  or  at  least  their  ver- 
tues,  do  make  noble  and  knowne."  Roger  Lud- 
low was  the  second  son  of  Thomas  Ludlow, 

24 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  .      25 

of  Maiden  Bradley,  Wiltshire,  Knight,  and 
Jane  Pyle,  sister  of  Sir  Gabriel  Pyle,  Knight, 
and  was  born  in  March,  1590.  His  father 
was  uncle  of  Sir  Henry  Ludlow,  who  sat 
in  the  Long  Parliament  in  1640,  a  brilliant 
advocate  of  the  liberties  of  the  people,  and 
taking  rank  in  his  service  with  the  great  lead- 
ers of  the  Puritan  party  ;  and  great-uncle  of 
Sir  Edmund  Ludlow,  a  graduate  of  Oxford,  a 
volunteer  with  the  troop  of  horse  from  the 
students  of  the  Inns  of  Court  in  the  life-guard 
of  the  Earl  of  Essex  at  the  battle  of  Edgehill, 
who  won  the  highest  military  rank  as  Lieuten- 
ant-General,  served  with  great  distinction  in 
Parliament,  was  a  member  of  the  court  at  the 
trial  of  King  Charles,  refused  all  inducements 
from  Cromwell  to  serve  his  imperial  ambition, 
and  who,  after  the  Restoration,  was  outlawed, 
shorn  of  his  titles  and  estates,  and  died  in  ex- 
ile in  Switzerland,  leaving  in  his  memoirs  one 
of  the  most  valuable  of  all  accounts  of  that 
notable  period  in  English  history,  and  whom 
Macaulay  calls  "the  most  illustrious  survivor 
of  a  mighty  race  of  men,  the  judges  of  a  king, 
the  founders  of  a  republic." 

Ludlow's  eldest  brother,    Gabriel,  was  ad- 
mitted as  a  student  to  the  Inner  Temple  in 


26  ROGER  LUDLOW 

1610,  became  a  Barrister  in  1620,  and  won  the 
honor  of  a  Bencher  in  1637.  His  youngest 
brother,  George,  emigrated  to  New  England, 
and  thence  to  Virginia,  where  he  acquired  a 
large  estate,  became  prominent  in  colonial  af- 
fairs, and  a  member  of  the  Parliamentary 
Council. 

Gabriel  Ludlow,  cousin  to  Roger,  distin- 
guished for  his  bravery  in  the  defence  of  Wer- 
der  Castle,  fell  at  the  battle  of  Newbury ;  and 
another  cousin,  Robert,  an  officer  of  the  Par- 
liamentary army,  died  of  cruel  treatment  while 
a  prisoner  in  the  hands  of  the  Royalists,  after 
the  siege  of  York. 

Roger  Ludlow  married  Mary  Endicott,  a 
sister  of  Governor  John  Endicott  of  Massachu- 
setts, and  was  related  on  the  mother's  side  to 
the  family  of  Chief  Justice  Popham,  long  noted 
as  the  founder  of  the  first  colonies  in  Maine. 
In  camp  and  Parliament,  at  home  and  abroad, 
soldiers,  lawyers,  scholars,  statesmen  from  the 
Ludlow  families  were  standard-bearers  for  the 
Puritans  in  their  long  contest  with  kings  and 
Lord  Protector,  and  often  to  the  sacrifice  of 
life  and  fortune ;  and  that  they  were  wedded 
to  the  profession  of  the  law  is  clearly  shown  in 
the  following  entries  from  the  records  of  the 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  27 

Inner  Temple,  including  the  manuscript  note 
of  Roger  Ludlow's  own  admission  there : 

MEMBERS     ADMITTED     TO     THE     INNER     TEMPLE 
1547-1660. 

1609     Nov. 

Henry  Ludlow  (Sir),  Maiden  Bradley,  Wilts    Sheriff  of 

Wilts  1633. 
M.P.  1640.     Died  1643. 

1609  Nov. 

Edmund  Ludlowe,  Hill  Deverell,  Wilts 
Second  son  of  Henry  Ludlow. 
Seated  at  Tadley,  Hants.     Died  1644. 

1610  Nov. 

Gabriel  Ludlow,  Butleigh,  Somersetshire.     B.  1620. 
Called  to  the  Bench,  1637. 

Edmund  Ludlow,  Maiden  Bradley,  Wilts.  Son  &  heir 
of  Sir  Henry  Ludlow,  Kt.  Born  1620.  M.P.  for 
Hindon.  One  of  the  King's  Judges.  Died  1693 
at  Vevay. 

1637     Nov. 

Gabriel  Ludlow,  Son  &  heir  of  Gabriel  Ludlowe,  a 
Bencher. 


28  ROGER  LUDLOW 

ADMISSIONS  1571-1640. 

Ludlow  Rogerus. 

Rogerus  Ludlowe  de  Warmynstere  in  Comitatu  Wiltes, 
Generosus,  admissus  est  in  Societatem  ipsius  Com- 
itivaa  in  consideratione  trium  librarum,  sex  sol- 

/  s  d 

idorum  et  octo  denariorum,  (llj  vi  viii)  prae- 
manibus  solutorum  xxviij  die  Januarii  Anno  xp. 
supradicto  (1612). 

...  j  Thomas  Ludlowe      ) 

°  (  Edmond  Ludlowe,    j 

Of  such  lineage  and  kinship,  and  living  in  a 
time  when  great  deeds  were  done,  Ludlow 
found  his  fitting  place  with  the  Puritans,  who 
were  called  by  both  duty  and  choice  to  the 
field  of  adventure  and  preferment  in  New 
England.  To  this  service  he  gave  his  for- 
tune ;  and  he  brought  to  it  a  thorough  educa- 
tional equipment  and  discipline,  as  he  was 
matriculated  at  Balliol  College,  Oxford,  in 
1610,  and  became  a  student  in  the  Inner 
Temple  in  1612.  All  his  years,  from  collegi- 
ate days  to  his  departure  for  New  England  at 
the  age  of  forty,  were  devoted  to  academic 
and  legal  training,  research,  and  experience  ; 
so  attaining  the  mastery  of  principles,  prece- 
dents, and  forms,  and  that  knowledge  of  legal 
procedure  which  marked  him,  to  his  jealous 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  29 

and  critical  associates,  as  the  man  among  them 
all  to  adapt,  originate,  and  frame  the  funda- 
mental colonial  laws,  constitutional,  statutory, 
political,  civil,  and  criminal,  in  exact,  compre- 
hensive, and  finished  legal  phraseology.  To 
do  all  this,  and  serve  as  magistrate,  commis- 
sioner, legislator,  jurist,  became  his  ultimate 
task,  his  supreme  honor,  in  the  land  of  his 
adoption. 

Of  the  English  clergy  who  were  foremost 
in  the  Puritan  emigration,  none  was  more 
zealous  than  the  Rev.  John  White,  for  forty 
years  rector  of  Holy  Trinity  Church,  Dor- 
chester. It  was  he  who  first  organized  the 
association  known  as  the  Dorchester  Adven- 
turers, which  made  a  sorry  failure  of  the 
settlement  at  Cape  Ann,  "  as  the  colonists 
were  ill  chosen,  and  fell  into  many  disorders." 
When  the  design  was  abandoned,  White  per- 
suaded Conant,  Woodbury,  Balch,  Palfrey, 
and  others,  who  had  removed  to  Salem,  not  to 
desert  the  enterprise  ;  and  he  undertook  to 
send  them  men  and  supplies,  and  to  obtain  a 
patent.  In  March,  1628,  he  obtained  a  grant 
to  John  Endicott  and  others,  known  as  the 
Dorchester  Company,  from  Devon,  Dorset, 
and  Somerset,  —  "a  godly  and  religious  people, 


30  ROGER  LUDLOW 

many  of  them  persons  of  note  and  figure, 
being  dignified  with  ye  title  of  master,  which 
but  few  in  those  days  were." 

Great  care  was  taken  that  this  company 
should  constitute  a  well-ordered  settlement, 
with  all  the  elements  of  an  independent  com- 
munity. Endicott  made  haste,  and  settled  at 
Salem  with  his  company  in  September,  1629. 
Six  months  later  the  six  original  patentees, 
with  twenty  new  associates,  procured  from 
King  Charles  the  famous  charter  of  "  The 
Governor  and  Company  of  Massachusetts 
Bay  in  New  England."  In  this  company 
Ludlow  was  chosen  an  assistant  by  the 
stockholders  in  London,  "that  his  counsel 
and  judgment  might  aid  in  preserving  order, 
and  founding  the  social  structure  upon  the 
surest  basis." 

Ludlow's  associates  and  friends  in  the  Dor- 
chester and  Bay  companies  were  men  of 
achievement  and  renown,  makers  of  the  Eng- 
lish as  well  as  the  New  England  common- 
wealth, members  of  Parliament,  some  of  them, 
and  judges  in  the  courts  ;  the  Earl  of  War- 
wick, Lord  Say  and  Sele,  Winthrop  and 
Humphrey,  Vane,  Venn,  Owen,  Andrews, 
and  Young  among  the  number.  The  choice 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  31 

of  Ludlow  as  an  assistant  by  such  men  marks 
his  ability,  his  political,  professional,  and  so- 
cial rank,  and  the  qualities  of  leadership  in 
the  weighty  problems  that  confronted  the 
emigrants  in  the  new  world. 

In  the  first  ship  of  the  fleet,  in  the  spring  of 
1630,  Ludlow  set  sail  from  Plymouth  with 
Mason,  trained  under  Fairfax  in  the  Lowlands, 
the  destroyer  of  the  Pequots,  and  comrade 
in  arms  of  Miles  Standish  ;  Underhill,  friend 
of  Count  Nassau  ;  Patrick,  of  the  Prince  of 
Orange  Guard ;  Southcote  and  Smith ;  the 
minister  Maverick  and  his  colleague,  Ware- 
ham  ;  with  a  goodly  company,  landing  at  Nan- 
tasket  in  May,  1630,  and,  after  some  mishaps, 
settling  at  Dorchester,  so  giving  point  to  the 
ecstatic  sentiment  of  Blake  in  his  Annals  : 

"  The  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  so  plainly  held  out  in  ye 
Preaching  of  ye  Gospel  to  poor  lost  sinners,  and  ye  ab- 
solute necessity  of  ye  New  Birth,  and  God's  spirit  in 
those  days  was  pleased  to  accompany  ye  Word  with 
such  efficacy  upon  ye  hearts  of  many,  that  our  Hearts 
were  quite  taken  off  from  Old  England,  and  set  upon 
Heaven." 


CHAPTER    IV. 

Ludlow  in  Massachusetts — Leader  in  Public  Affairs — Stockholder 
— Landowner — Auditor  of  Governor  Winthrop's  Accounts — 
Superintendent  of  Fortifications  —  Military  Commissioner — 
Magistrate — Legislator — Deputy  Governor — The  Charter — Its 
Contravention — Assumption  of  Power  —  Ludlow's  Protest — 
Magisterial  Sentiment  —  Church-Membership  Test  —  Popular 
Remonstrance — Choice  of  Deputies — Cotton's  Postulate. 

LUDLOW'S  service  to  Massachusetts  covered 
a  period  of  about  five  years,  from  the  duties 
of  a  magistrate  in  the  Court  of  Assistants, — the 
highest  judicial  tribunal  of  the  colonial  period 
to  1692,  sometimes  called  the  Great  Charter 
Court, —  to  those  of  the  Deputy  Governor- 
ship. Then,  as  now,  men  were  judged  and 
their  reputation  was  established  by  their  con- 
duct of  common  affairs,  the  performance  of 
religious,  civil,  social,  and  political  duties  in 
every-day  life. 

Tried  by  this  test,  even  the  brief  notices  of 
Ludlow  in  the  current  records  of  the  time 
are  conclusive  evidence  of  his  command  of  the 
confidence  and  esteem  of  his  fellow  men. 

32 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  33 

A  bare  enumeration  of  the  responsibilities 
entrusted  to  him  demonstrates  the  high  quality 
of  his  labors,  in  both  personal  and  official 
station.  He  was  one  of  Dorchester's  three 
stockholders  in  the  Bay  Company  ;  he  selected 
the  site  for  the  Dorchester  plantation,  was  a 
landowner  there  under  a  grant  from  the  Gen- 
eral Court,  and  was  also  land  commissioner, 
land  viewer,  and  surveyor ;  he  was  appointed  a 
justice  of  the  peace,  with  Winthrop  and  Sal- 
tonstall,  at  the  first  session  of  the  General 
Court  in  1630;  conducted  the  negotiations  for 
the  first  treaty  with  the  Pequots ;  served  as 
administrator  of  estates  ;  drafted  orders  and 
laws  to  meet  emergencies,  and  held  the  rank 
of  colonel  ex  officio.  He  was  charged  with  the 
delicate  task  of  auditing  the  account  of  Gov- 

o 

ernor  Winthrop's  receipts  and  disbursements, 
and  made  a  report  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 
critical  General  Court.  When  the  King  cre- 
ated the  Court  of  Commissioners  with  plenary 
powers,  in  1634,  with  Laud  at  the  head  of  it, 
to  take  charge  of  the  colonies  and  cancel  all 
letters  patent  if  found  expedient,  and  Massa- 
chusetts was  ordered  to  lay  its  charter  before 
the  Privy  Council,  so  threatening  the  subver- 
sion of  the  colonial  government  and  the 


34  ROGER  LUDLOW 

overthrow  of  all  that  had  been  accomplished 
for  human  liberty,  and  the  colonists  resolved 
to  defend  themselves  by  force  as  well  as  by 
diplomacy,  Ludlow  was  made  superintendent 
of  the  fortifications  at  Castle  Island,  one  of 
the  most  important  points  of  resistance  to  the 
sea  approach  of  an  enemy  ;  and  even  when 
political  sentiment  toward  him,  in  his  last  pub- 
lic service  in  Massachusetts,  had  somewhat 
changed,  he  was  chosen  a  member  of  a  mili- 
tary commission  of  most  extraordinary  author- 
ity, with  his  compeers,  Winthrop,  Dudley, 
Haynes,  Endicott,  Bellingham,  Pynchon,  and 
Bradstreet ;  thus,  by  his  pre-eminence  in  these 
varied  relations,  giving  a  new  significance  to 
Palfrey's  stinted  compliment  that  he  was  "  the 
principal  lay  citizen  of  Dorchester." 

With  such  a  record  in  private  and  public 
affairs  of  the  lesser  sort,  of  which  little  account 
has  been  taken  by  the  earlier  writers,  and 
which  would  of  themselves  have  entitled  Lud- 
low to  distinction,  there  remains  for  recog- 
nition his  share  as  a  jurist  and  legislator  in 
the  formative  period  of  colonial  history  in 
Massachusetts. 

The  nominal  authority,  executive,  judicial, 
and  legislative,  rested  in  the  royal  charter ; 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  3; 

but  the  real  power,  the  right  to  govern,  to 
conquer,  to  endure,  to  create  a  commonwealth 
all  their  own,  lived  only  in  the  colonists  them- 
selves. The  letter  was  written  in  the  English 
law ;  but  the  spirit,  the  interpretation,  was 
made  in  hymn  and  prayer  and  sermon,  and  in 
the  grave  debates  of  court  and  council.  An 
assistant  in  the  chartered  Company  at  home, 
whose  legitimate  functions  were  those  of  a 
director  in  the  usual  affairs  of  a  corporation, 
was,  much  to  his  liking,  transformed  in  the 
colony  to  an  executive,  legislative,  and  judicial 
councillor,  in  both  Church  and  State. 

The  royal  charter  to  the  Governor  and 
Company  of  Massachusetts  Bay  simply  au- 
thorized the  patentees  to  make  laws  and  or- 
dinances not  repugnant  to  English  law,  to 
choose  officers,  to  administer  oaths  of  su- 
premacy and  allegiance  to  the  freemen,  to 
admit  new  associates,  to  transport  malcon- 
tents, to  resist  invasion  and  intrusion  by  force 
of  arms.  Nothing  was  said  of  religious  lib- 
erty ;  and  no  condition  of  citizenship  was  pre- 
scribed, save  the  will  and  vote  of  those  already 
freemen.  From  these  narrow  powers,  the 
Governor,  Deputy  Governor,  and  assistants, 
with  some  notable  exceptions,  —  undoubtedly 


36  ROGER  LUDLOW 

pursuant  to  the  original  design,  when  the 
royal  assent  to  the  transfer  of  the  charter  to 
New  England  was  secured,  —  undertook  in 
their  own  way  to  build  a  state  with  a  church 
covenant  as  an  integral  principle,  a  common- 
wealth on  an  ecclesiastical  foundation,  with 
church-membership  the  test  of  citizenship,  and 
the  tenure  of  the  magisterial  office  made  ex- 
clusive and  perpetual. 

During  Ludlow's  terms  of  office  in  the  Gen- 
eral Court  as  Assistant  and  Deputy  Governor, 
in  his  regular  attendance  at  the  sessions,  ques- 
tions of  gravest  concern  were  determined  in 
which  he  bore  a  notable  part. 

These,  among  others,  were  the  weighty  mat- 
ters to  which  the  men  of  the  Bay  Colony  de- 
voted themselves  in  the  crucial  years  from 
1630  to  1635  :  to  allot  lands  and  provide 
homes  for  settlers,  to  locate  town  sites,  to 
build  fortifications,  to  regulate  prices  of  labor 
and  materials,  to  create  and  maintain  military 
forces,  to  appoint  civil  and  military  officers,  to 
change  the  system  of  official  elections,  to  grant 
licenses,  to  build  roads  and  maintain  ferries, 
to  set  up  church-membership  as  the  test  of 
citizenship  ;  to  organize  churches  "  according 
to  the  Rule  of  the  Gospel,"  not  of  the  Anglican 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  37 

Church,  notwithstanding  the  fraternal  fare- 
well letter  of  Winthrop,  Dudley,  and  others, 
"  To  the  rest  of  their  Brethren  in  and  of  the 
Church  of  England,"  and  their  prayers  for  the 
aid  and  grace  of  "  our  dear  mother"  ;  to  hold 
fast  to  the  charter  and  their  rights  under  it  as 
they  interpreted  them,  despite  the  imperative 
order  to  send  it  over  to  England  and  lay  it  before 
the  Privy  Council ;  above  all,  to  create  in  fact 
and  in  law  the  Puritan  theocracy,  not  in  the 
sense  that  political  authority  and  power  should 
be  exercised  by  the  ministers  alone,  since  they 
were  often  rebuked  for  overstepping  the  lines 
of  their  calling  in  political  matters,  but  that 
theocracy,  no  less  potent  in  its  practical  appli- 
cation in  the  consciences  of  both  priests  and 
laymen,  which  the  General  Court  undertook 
to  define  in  a  statute  affirming  its  faith  in  the 
Bible  and  prescribing  a  penalty  for  denial  of 
its  genuineness  and  authority. 

With  the  performance  of  his  full  duty  in  all 
these  varied  questions,  public  and  private,  in 
this  great  school  of  education,  experience,  and 
discipline,  and  especially  in  the  vital  matter  of 
the  return  of  the  patent  to  England,  wherein 
he  was  a  zealous  advocate  of  the  waiting  policy, 
expressed  in  Winthrop's  record  "  to  avoid  and 


38  ROGER  LUDLOW 

protract,"  and  all  in  such  wise  as  to  win  from 
his  zealous  and  ambitious  associates  the  high 
honor  of  Deputy  Governor  in  1634,  —  when 
Dudley  was  chosen  Governor,  and  Winthrop 
took  Ludlow's  place  as  an  Assistant, — it  was 
at  one  point  in  his  career  in  Massachusetts 
that  Ludlow  came  into  the  strong  light  of 
criticism,  and  made  a  declaration  which  has 
colored  his  whole  history,  and  which  has  been 
exploited  to  his  discredit  and  disparagement, 
without  recognition  of  his  radical  change  of 
views  as  to  the  rights  of  the  citizen, — as 
exemplified  in  his  later  service. 

Winthrop,  in  his  journal,  tells  the  story  very 
simply,  but  the  situation  was  dramatic,  the  con- 
troversies bitter.  Dudley  had  broken  out  in  a 
storm  of  accusations  against  the  government, 
and  in  a  fit  of  bitterness  and  anger  had  resigned 
from  the  magistracy,  and  was  under  discipline 
for  his  act.  Other  momentous  questions  in- 
vited radical  differences  of  opinion  ;  and  finally, 
at  the  session  of  the  General  Court  in  May, 
1632,  the  Governor  said 

"that  he  had  heard  that  the  people  intended,  at  the  next 
general  court,  to  desire  that  the  assistants  might  be  chosen 
anew  every  year,  and  that  the  governor  might  be  chosen 
by  the  whole  court,  and  not  by  the  assistants  only." 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER  39 

"  Upon  this  Mr.  Ludlow  grew  into  a  passion,  and  said 
that  then  we  should  have  no  government,  but  there 
would  be  an  interim  wherein  every  man  might  do  what 
he  pleased."  "  This  was  answered  and  cleared  in  the 
judgment  of  the  rest  of  the  assistants  ;  but  he  continued 
stiff  in  his  opinion,  and  protested  he  would  then  return 
back  into  England." 

This  incident  has  been  exaggerated  by  some 
partisan  writers  to  demonstrate  that  Ludlow 
was  impetuous,  irascible,  of  aristocratic  tenden- 
cies, and  wanting  in  the  grace  and  dignity  of 
high  station  when  his  personal  ambition  and 
interests  came  into  conflict  with  popular  de- 
mands or  the  performance  of  his  official  duty. 
Grant  this,  and  yet  he  was  only  one  of  a  goodly 
company  at  that  time  who  believed, —  relig- 
iously believed, — with  Cotton,  that  "  never  did 
God  ordain  democracy  for  the  government  of 
the  church  or  people," — a  political  tenet  which 
made  Massachusetts  first  an  oligarchy,  and 
then  an  aristocracy  to  the  days  of  the  revolu- 
tion, and  which,  in  its  hateful  enforcement 
against  the  consciences  of  men,  made  demo- 
crats of  Ludlow,  Hooker,  Haynes,  and  others, 
who  left  her  jurisdiction  because  of  its  intoler- 
ance, and  set  up  the  standard  of  pure  democ- 
racy in  the  valley  of  the  Connecticut. 

A    clearer    light   falls   on    this   episode    in 


40  ROGER  LUDLOW 

Ludlow's  career  when  it  is  recalled  in  brief  what 
the  Governor  and  Company  of  Massachusetts 
Bay  undertook  to  do  in  the  early  years  of  the 
"  sojourn "  under  the  royal  charter,  and  de- 
spite it,  especially  in  the  most  vital  matter  of 
all,  the  elective  franchise, —  the  right  and 
power  of  men  to  govern  themselves.  It  has 
been  noted  that  Cradock,  White,  Saltonstall, 
and  others  secured  from  King  Charles  in  1629, 
the  transfer  of  the  patent  and  government  to  the 
freemen  who  should  become  inhabitants  of  the 
colony ;  and  the  Company,  in  General  Court 
at  Cambridge,  voted  that  the  charter  should 
be  transferred  and  the  powers  under  it  exer- 
cised in  New  England.  Winthrop  and  his 
Company,  and  the  immigrants  of  1630,  came 
over  under  this  corporate  assurance  and  guar- 
antee. They  were  to  become  the  interpreters 
of  their  own  charter  rights  and  privileges. 
They  made  haste  with  their  work. 

At  the  first  General  Court,  in  October,  1630, 
one  hundred  and  eighteen  persons  gave  notice 
of  their  wish  to  take  the  oath  and  become 
members  of  the  corporation.  Such  election 
would  make  a  corporate  majority  of  resident 
colonists.  The  men  chosen  to  office  in  Eng- 
land took  alarm  at  this  issue,  questioning  the 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  41 

power  and  purpose  of  voters  in  the  majority 
untrained  in  self-government  and  the  exigen- 
cies of  practical  politics.  But  behind  any 
public  concern  stood  the  fear  of  loss  of  office, 
with  its  dignity  and  honor,  on  the  part  of  the 
magistrates  themselves. 

Forthwith  a  meeting  of  the  Company  was 
held,  and  a  rule  was  adopted  which  delegated 
to  the  Assistants  alone  the  choice  of  Governor 
and  Deputy  Governor,  and  from  their  own 
number,  in  lieu  of  such  election  by  the  whole 
body  of  members  (voters)  ;  and  it  also  trans- 
ferred to  the  same  officers  the  power  of  mak- 
ing laws,  and  of  choosing  officials  to  execute 
them  ;  thus  leaving  to  the  freemen  only  a 
voice  in  the  yearly  election  of  the  Assistants 
themselves  ;  and  in  this  way  these  men,  to 
make  permanent  their  tenure  of  office  and 
maintain  their  magisterial  control,  defied  the 
unwritten  law  of  public  opinion,  that  resistless 
force  which  bides  its  time  and  moulds  all  hu- 
man destiny,  even  under  its  most  recent  poli- 
tical definition.  In  the  few  months  which 
intervened  between  this  action  and  the  session 
of  the  first  General  Court,  the  attempt  of  the 
magistrates  to  limit  the  method  of  election 
aroused  bitter  opposition  in  the  minds  of  some 


42  ROGER  LUDLOW 

of  the  most  influential  voters.  At  the  Court  in 
May,  1631,  the  one  hundred  and  eighteen  per- 
sons who  had  given  notice  were  chosen  mem- 
bers of  the  Company  and  took  the  freemen's 
oath. 

Immediately  the  freemen,  among  whom  were 
some  of  the  early  planters,  jealous  of  the  con- 
centration of  power  in  the  magistrates,  re- 
scinded the  previous  vote,  and  took  again  into 
their  own  hands  the  election  of  the  Company 
officers  ;  and,  to  secure  their  right  of  repre- 
sentation, they  also  ordered  the  choice  "  of 
two  of  every  plantation  to  confer  with  the 
court  about  raising  a  public  stock,"  the  initia- 
tive of  the  regular  election  of  deputies,  the 
second  legislative  house,  with  a  voice  in  all 
public  affairs,  save  that  every  freeman  had  his 
vote  in  the  election  of  officers. 

And  again,  these  men,  who  had  expatriated 
themselves  for  the  sake  of  civil  and  religious 
liberty,  at  that  time  wrote  another  page  of  his- 
tory without  a  parallel.  They  "  ordered  and 
agreed,  that,  for  the  time  to  come,  no  man 
should  be  admitted  to  the  freedom  of  this 
body  politic  but  such  as  were  members  of 
some  of  the  churches  within  the  limits  of  the 
same. " 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  43 

Thus  was  an  aristocracy  created,  not  of  birth 
or  culture,  of  wealth,  achievement,  or  distinc- 
tion, but  one  of  persons  whose  sole  test  of 
quality  was  church  membership, — a  religious 
commonwealth.  On  this  definition  of  citizen- 
ship, came  Cotton,  preaching  the  crusade  of 
ecclesiastical  domination  in  both  spiritual  and 
temporal  affairs,  abetted  by  the  intemperate 
advocacy  of  his  doctrines  by  his  brethren  ;  set- 
ting up  a  separate  clerico-magisterial  estate, 
defined  in  spirit  and  purpose  in  Cotton's  pos- 
tulate :  "A  magistrate  ought  not  to  be  turned 
into  the  condition  of  a  private  man  without 
just  cause,  and  to  be  publicly  convict,  no  more 
than  the  magistrates  may  not  turn  a  private 
man  out  of  his  freedom  without  like  public 
trial." 

Count  all  the  causes  that  inspired  the  break- 
ing away  from  the  Bay  Colony,  including  the 
superficial  ones  set  down  in  the  public  records, 
which  ripened  first  into  the  removal  to  Con- 
necticut, and  the  most  potent  one  centres  in 
the  intolerance,  and  arrogance  and  narrow- 
ness of  the  ministerial  dignitaries,  and  the 
church-membership  test  of  citizenship.  Adams, 
in  The  Emancipation  of  Massachusetts,  defines 
the  precise  situation  : 


44  ROGER  LUDLOW 

"  Though  communicants  were  not  necessarily  voters, 
no  one  could  be  a  voter  who  was  not  a  communicant : 
therefore  the  town  meeting  was  nothing  but  the  church 
meeting,  possibly  somewhat  attenuated,  and  called  by 
a  different  name.  By  this  insidious  statute  the  clergy 
seized  the  temporal  power,  which  they  held  till  the  char- 
ter fell.  The  minister  stood  at  the  head  of  the  congre- 
gation, and  moulded  it  to  suit  his  purposes  and  to  do  his 
will.  Common  men  could  not  have  kept  this  hold  upon 
the  inhabitants  of  New  England  ;  but  the  clergy  were 
learned,  resolute,  and  able,  and  their  strong  but  nar- 
row minds  burned  with  fanaticism  and  love  of  power." 


CHAPTER  V. 

Ludlow's  Attitude  as  an  Assistant — Change  of  Views — His  Defeat  for 
the  Governorship — Election  of  Haynes — Winthrop's  Explana- 
tion—  Ludlow's  Objection  —  Overslaughed  —  Resolutions  to 
Remove  to  Connecticut — The  Removal — Its  Real  Cause — Lud- 
low,  Hooker,  Cotton,  Stone — Ministerial  Interference — Magis- 
terial Arrogance — Court  and  Commons. 

IN  the  outset  of  the  struggle  between  the 
magistrates  and  the  commons,  Ludlow,  as  one 
of  the  Assistants,  stood  with  his  associates  in 
magnifying  and  undertaking  to  perpetuate  the 
magisterial  office  ;  so  carrying  out  his  protest, 
and  guarding,  as  he  thought,  against  encroach- 
ments on  the  functions  and  honors  of  the 
Court.  But  when  the  freemen  set  aside  pre- 
vious corporate  votes,  demanded  a  sight  of 
the  charter,  appointed  advisers  to  the  magis- 
trates —  deputies  —  and  made  imperative  their 
demands  for  recognition,  Ludlow  changed  both 
his  tactics  and  opinions,  with  other  leaders, 
and  made  himself  popular  with  the  voters,  as 
they  elected  him  Deputy  Governor  in  1634,, 

45 


46  ROGER  LUDLOW 

with  Dudley  as  Governor,  when  other  advo- 
cates of  the  court  party  were  left  out  of  the 
magistracy. 

After  four  years  of  arduous  service,  with 
the  strong  hold  Ludlow  had  secured  on  public 
confidence  by  a  successful  administration  of 
his  high  office,  he  had  every  reason  to  believe 
that  in  the  general  election,  in  May,  1635,  ^le 
would  be  advanced  to  the  governorship.  But 
he  was  defeated  by  Haynes,  a  rich  land-owner 
from  Essex,  who  came  over  with  Hooker  and 
Cotton  in  1633,  who  was  made  an  assistant  in 
1634,  and  who  had  gained  favor  by  advocating 
the  lessening  of  taxes  and  other  popular 
measures. 

Winthrop  gives  two  reasons  for  the  over- 
slaughing of  Ludlow  :  "  i.  Because  the  peo- 
ple would  exercise  their  power.  2.  Because 
Ludlow  hotly  condemned  the  action  of  the 
delegates  for  declaring  an  agreement  on  can- 
didates before  they  came  to  the  meeting." 
They  had  held  a  caucus  of  the  later  style,  and 
packed  it  with  supporters  of  Haynes  and  Bel- 
lingham.  Ludlow  protested  that  such  action 
made  the  election  void  ;  but  the  voters  ignored 
the  protest,  carried  out  their  scheme,  set  aside 
the  man  fairly  entitled  to  preferment,  and 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  47 

conferred  the  governorship  on  a  newcomer. 
Thus  Massachusetts  lost  the  services  of  one 
of  her  ablest  men  ;  and  Connecticut  counted 
him  among  her  pioneers,  and  is  to  this  day  en- 
joying the  work  of  his  hand  in  her  unique 
constitution,  her  jurisprudence,  her  political 
and  religious  liberty  defined  by  the  rules  of 
justice,  equity,  and  good  conscience. 

Scarcely  had  the  solemn  file  of  voters,  bid- 
den to  come  in  at  one  door  of  the  meeting- 
house and  go  out  at  another,  delivered  their 
ballots  down  upon  the  table  before  the  Gen- 
eral Court,  and  the  old  Governor  had  formally 
declared  the  election  of  the  new  officials,  and 
all  had  gone  their  ways, —  some  to  boast  of 
their  political  finesse,  some  to  gossip  and 
wrangle,  and  some  to  quaff  of  sack  or  beer  or 
strong  waters, —  when  the  defeated  Deputy 
Governor  resolved  to  have  done  with  the 
Governor  and  Company  of  Massachusetts 
Bay,  and  open  a  new  realm  of  adventure  and 
achievement  wherein  he  might  win  the  honors 
he  deserved  and  craved.  And  this  was  no 
new  thought  to  him  and  to  some  of  his  asso- 
ciates. 

It  had  long  been  evident  to  Ludlow, 
Hooker,  Stone,  and  other  prominent  colonists, 


43  ROGER  LUDLOW 

that  there  was  scant  room  in  the  Bay  settle- 
ments or  adjacent  territories  to  accommodate 
the  increasing  number  of  immigrants,  and 
there  was  great  discontent  among  the  people 
for  various  causes.  The  matter  was  often  dis- 
cussed, and  finally  came  to  official  considera- 
tion in  the  General  Court.  The  ostensible 
causes  of  the  removal  to  Connecticut  were 
simply  put  by  its  advocates.  They  argued  — 
for  argument's  sake  —  that  they  had  no  ac- 
commodation for  their  cattle  and  could  not 
support  their  minister  or  receive  more  friends  ; 
that  Connecticut  was  large  and  productive, 
and  was  in  danger  of  occupation  by  the 
Dutch  or  by  other  Englishmen.  To  these 
propositions  Winthrop  and  others  made 
answer,  that  all  the  Bay  people  were  knit  in 
one  body,  and  bound  to  seek  the  welfare  of 
the  Commonwealth ;  that  both  the  state  and 
civil  polity  forbade  the  removal ;  that  the 
colony  was  weak  and  in  danger  from  the 
Dutch  and  Indians  and  from  the  hostility  of 
the  home  government  ;  and,  lastly,  that 
Hooker  would  draw  away  many  with  him. 

There  was  a  division  in  the  General  Court 
on  the  question,  and  a  day  was  appointed  for 
fasting,  prayer,  and  humiliation.  Hooker  was 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  49 

asked  to  preach  the  sermon,  but,  on  his  in- 
stant excuse  of  unfitness  for  the  occasion  (for 
the  reason  that  he  had  resolved  to  go  to  Con- 
necticut), Cotton  was  called  upon,  and  his  ex- 
emplification of  the  text,  "  The  removing  of  a 
candlestick  is  a  great  matter  which  is  to  be 
avoided,"  seems  to  have  given  brief  pause  to 
the  agitation. 

But  neither  fasting,  humiliation,  nor  prayer, 
nor  fervid  doctrinal  appeals,  could  turn  "  the 
strong  bent  of  their  spirits  to  remove  hither." 
The  controlling  factors  in  the  whole  situation, 
apart  from  the  points  of  discussion  in  the 
General  Court,  and  out  of  it,  lay  in  the  fact 
that  men  of  masterful  purposes,  of  broad 
views  of  human  rights,  of  faith  in  democratic 
principles,  could  not  brook  the  church  mem- 
bership test  of  suffrage,  the  exclusiveness  and 
the  arrogance  of  the  magisterial  and  ministe- 
rial interference  and  dictation  in  public  and 
private  affairs.  There  was  no  room  for  the 
accommodation  of  views,  the  building  of  a  free 
state,  in  the  narrow  field  of  controversy  be- 
tween the  party  lines  of  court  and  commons. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

The  Valley  of  the  Long  River — Knowledge  of  its  Resources — 
Block — Wahginnacut — Oldham — The  Leave  to  Remove — Cam- 
bridge— Watertown — Dorchester — Commission  to  Govern  the 
New  Colony — Ludlow  Made  its  Head — The  Agreement — Its 
Text — Trumbull's  Definition. 

THE  valley  of  the  long  river  was  not  an  un- 
known country  to  the  men  of  the  new  emigra- 
tion. Accounts  of  its  fertility,  its  varied 
resources,  its  abundance  of  corn  and  furs,  from 
Indians,  explorers,  traders,  and  scouts,  in  their 
journeyings  thither  by  land  and  water,  had 
been  carried  to  the  Bay  colonists,  and  were 
well  known  in  England.  From  the  Dutch 
captain's  report  of  his  expedition  among  the 
Sequins  in  1614  ;  from  the  appeal  of  the  na- 
tives driven  forth  by  the  "  potencie  of  the 
Pequents  "  ;  from  the  glowing  description  of 
the  sachem  Wahginnacut,  who  came  first  to 
Ludlow  and  had  dined  with  Governor  Win- 
throp  and  the  magistrates,  and  had  urged  the 
English  to  come  to  his  country ;  from  the 

50 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  51 

stories  of  Hall  and  others  who  had  taken 
the  five-days  journey  ;  of  Holmes,  who  had 
sailed  up  the  river,  defied  the  Dutch,  and  es- 
tablished a  post  at  Windsor  ;  of  Oldham,  the 
reckless  adventurer,  with  his  personal  knowl- 
edge of  the  region,  who  had  chosen  a  site  for 
a  settlement  at  Wethersfield  ;  and  from  other 
sources,  there  had  come  to  be  such  an  ac- 
quaintance with  the  new  land — Connecticut — 
at  the  time  of  the  removal  of  the  three  towns, 
as  to  invite  a  sharp  struggle,  diplomatic  and 
otherwise,  for  first  occupation  and  supremacy 
there  between  the  men  of  Massachusetts,  of 
Plymouth,  and  of  the  new  company  of  "  lords 
and  gentlemen"  under  the  Saltonstall  patent, 
with  young  Winthrop  at  its  head.  Nor  were 
the  hardships  and  dangers  of  the  new  coloniza- 
tion lost  sight  of,  not  only  from  the  fierce  hos- 
tility of  the  Dutch  and  Indians,  but  from 
pestilence,  famine  and  the  terrible  rigors  of 
winter,  and  all  the  hazards  that  wait  on  new- 
comers in  the  wilderness. 

At  the  General  Court,  in  September,  1634, 
Massachusetts  confirmed  the  leaves  to  remove 
to  the  three  towns,  Cambridge,  Watertown, 
and  Dorchester  ;  but  hedged  her  consent  about 
with  nominal  conditions  of  sovereignty  and 


52  ROGER  LUDLOW 

allegiance,  not  so  much  from  any  claim  of 
jurisdiction  by  reason  of  the  patent,  as  from 
the  desire  of  the  people  about  to  remove  for 
some  frame  of  government  for  their  protec- 
tion ;  and,  with  some  minor  preliminary  or- 
ders and  grants,  the  movement  began,  and 
Connecticut  was  formally  designated  as  the 
field  of  the  new  colonization. 

"  Prvided  they  continue  still  vndr  this 
gourmt,"  was  the  stipulation  in  each  license 
to  remove ;  and  in  March,  1636,  the  General 
Court  of  Massachusetts  instituted  a  pro- 
visional government  under  a  commission  to 
certain  persons  who  "  had  resolved  to  trans- 
plant themselves  and  their  estates  unto  the 
river  of  Connecticut."  Diverse  views  are  held 
as  to  the  scope  and  purpose  of  this  commis- 
sion ;  but  the  learned  historian,  the  late  Dr.  J. 
Hammond  Trumbull,  in  his  "  Note  on  the 
Constitutions  of  Connecticut"  thus  defines  it : 

"  It  was  in  fact  an  agreement  ratified  in  the  presence 
of  the  Massachusetts  General  Court,  between  the 
founders  of  Connecticut  and  the  representatives  of  the 
Earl  of  Warwick's  grantees,  who,  as  the  instrument  sets 
forth,  had  sometime  engaged  themselves  and  their 
estates  in  the  planting  of  the  river  of  Connecticut,  and 
had  already  made  a  beginning  at  Saybrook." 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  53 

This  was  the  text  of  the  commission 
"  graunted  to  severall  Prsons  to  governe  the 
People  att  Connecticott  fr  the  Space  of  a  Yeare 

nowe  nexte  comeing  : "      yfa+u 

fe  v  J  i  A          •     vf 

g,  -*•**-#-  <    ' ' 

"  Whereas,  vpon  some  reason  &  grounds,  there  are  to 
remoue  from  this  or  Cofnonwealth  &  body  of  the  Matta- 
chusetts  in  America  dyvrs  of  or  loveing  ffriends, 
neighbrs,  freemen  &  members  of  Newe  Towne,  Dor- 
chest1,  Waterton,  &  other  places,  whoe  are  resolved  to 
transplant  themselues  &  their  estates  vnto  the  Ryver  of 
Conecticott,  there  to  reside  &  inhabite,  &  to  that  end 
dyvrs  are  there  already,  &  dyvrs  others  shortly  to  goe> 
wee,  in  this  present  Court  assembled,  on  the  behalfe  of 
or  said  membrs,  &  John  Winthrop,  Junr,  Esqr,  Gouernrr 
appoyncted  by  certaine  noble  personages  &  men  of 
quallitie  interested  in  the  said  ryvr,  wch  are  yet  in  Eng- 
land, on  their  behalfe,  have  had  a  serious  consideracon 
there[on],  &  thinke  it  meete  that  where  there  are  a  peo- 
ple to  sitt  down  &  cohabite,  there  will  followe,  vpon 
occacon,  some  cause  of  difference,  as  also  dyvers  mis- 
deamean",  wch  will  require  a  speedy  redresse  ;  &  in  re- 
gard of  the  distance  of  place,  this  state  and  gouernm* 
cannot  take  notice  of  the  same  as  to  apply  timely 
remedy,  or  to  dispence  equall  iustice  to  them  &  their 
affaires,  as  may  be  desired  ;  &  in  regard  the  said  noble 
p'sonages  and  men  of  qualitie  haue  something  ingaged 
themselues  &  their  estates  in  the  planting  of  the  said 
ryver,  &  by  vertue  of  a  pattent,  doe  require  jurisdiccon 
of  the  said  place  &  people,  &  neither  the  mindes  of  the 
said  peonages  (they  being  writ  vnto)  are  as  yet  knowen, 
nor  any  manner  of  gouernm'  is  yet  agreed  on,  &  there 


54  ROGER  LUDLOW 

being  a  necessitie,  as  aforesaid,  that  some  present 
gouernm1  may  be  obserued,  therefore  thinke  meete,  & 

soe  order,  that  [  Roger  Ludlowe,   |    Esqr,   |   Willm  Pin- 

chon,  Esqr,  John  Steele,  Willm  Swaine,  Henry  Smyth, 
Willm  Phelps,  Willm  Westwood,  &  Andrewe  Ward,  or 
the  great'  pte  of  them,  shall  haue  full  power  &  aucthor- 
itie  to  hear  &  determine  in  a  judiciall  way,  by  witnesses 
vpon  oathe  examine,  w*[in]  the  said  plantacon,  all  those 
differences  wch  may  arise  between  partie  &  partie,  as 
also,  vpon  misdemean',  to  inflicte  corporall  punishm1  or 
imprisonm',  to  ffine  &  levy  the  same  if  occacon  soe  re- 
quire, to  make  &  decree  such  orders,  for  the  present, 
that  may  be  for  the  peaceable  and  quiett  ordering  the 
affaires  of  the  said  plantacon,  both  in  tradeing,  plant- 
ing, building,  lotts,  millitarie  dissipline,  defensiue 
warr  (if  neede  soe  require),  as  shall  best  conduce 
to  the  publique  goode  of  the  same,  &  that  the 

said       Roger  Ludlowe       {and  others\,   or   the    greater 

p'te  of  them,  shall  haue  power,  vnder  the  great'  parte 
of  their  ha[nds],  att  a  day  or  dayes  by  them  ap- 
poyncted,  vpon  convenient  not[ice],  to  convent  the 
said  inhabitants  of  the  said  townes  to  any  convenient 
place  that  they  shall  thinke  meete,  in  a  legall  &  open 
manner,  by  way  of  Court,  to  proceede  in  execute[ing~| 
the  power  &  aucthoritie  aforesaide,  &  in  case  of  present 
necessitie,  two  of  them  ioyneing  togeather,  to  inflict  cor- 
porall punishm'  vpon  any  offender  if  they  see  good  & 
warrantable  ground  soe  to  doe  ;  provided,  alwayes,  that 
this  comission  shall  not  extende  any  longer  time  than 
one  whole  yeare  from  the  date  thereof,  &  in  the  meane 
time  it  shalbe  lawfull  for  this  Court  to  recall  the  said 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  55 

presents  if  they  see  cause,  and  if  soe  be  there  may  be  a 
mutuall  and  setled  gouernm'  condiscended  vnto  by  & 
with  the  goode  likeing  &  consent  of  the  saide  noble 
personages,  or  their  agents,  the  inhabitants,  &  this 
comonwealthe  ;  provided,  also,  that  this  may  not  be  any 
preiudice  to  the  interest  of  those  noble  personages  in 
the  sd  ryver  &  confines  thereof  within  their  seuerall 
lymitts." 

How  should  the  new  colony  be  governed  ? 
Who  should  govern  it  ?  who  should  settle  the 
rivalries  of  the  factions  striving  for  possession 
of  the  new  territory,  and  hold  with  strong  hand 
the  key  of  the  situation  ?  who  should  solve  the 
intricate  problems  to  arise,  by  the  light  of  law 
and  equity,  of  sound  judgment  born  of  experi- 
ence ?  who  was  well  versed  in  precedents  and 
principles  in  the  conduct  of  state  affairs  ?  who 
knew  the  underlying  purposes  of  the  people  of 
the  three  towns,  and  could  best  adapt  them  to 
the  great  ends  held  in  view  from  the  begin- 
ning ?  Questions  these  of  first  importance  in 
the  minds  of  men  to  whom,  in  law  at  least, 
Church  and  State  were  one. 

The  General  Court  of  Massachusetts  an- 
swered these  questions  by  placing  Roger 
Ludlow  —  just  denied  his  promotion  to  the 
governorship  —  at  the  head  of  this  commis- 
sion, with  its  broad  discretionary  powers.  This 


56  ROGER  LUDLOW 

preferment  demonstrated  that  his  defeat  in  the 
election  was  for  political,  and  not  for  personal, 
reasons  ;  that  it  was  a  popular  choice  from  the 
strong  men  of  the  three  towns,  ratified  by  the 
General  Court,  to  leadership  in  a  field  wherein 
all  might  find  a  wider  range  for  the  liberty  they 
were  hungry  to  exercise,  —  the  democratic 
right  of  self-government. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Ludlow's  Initiative — Occupation — Conflicting  Interests — Indians — 
Dutch — Plymouth  Men  —  Saltonstall's  Company  —  Ludlow's 
Firmness  and  Diplomacy — "Ye  Controversie "  —  Underfill's 
Notice — Brewster's  Letter — Vane's  Demand — First  Comers — 
First  Winter — Sufferings  and  Losses — Spring  of  1636 — Organi- 
zation of  Court — Laws  and  Ordinances — Important  Measures — 
Administration  of  Justice  —  Ludlow  de  Facto  Governor  and 
Chief  Justice — The  Massachusetts  "  Agreement  "  Fulfilled. 

FROM  the  beginning,  in  1630,  Ludlow  had 
been  identified  with  the  interests  of  the  people 
of  Dorchester ;  and  now  this  "  principal  lay 
citizen,"  well  knowing  that  possession  was  nine 
points  of  the  law  (and  he  alone  of  the  commis- 
sion from  Massachusetts  knew  what  the  law 
was),  at  once  assumed  the  responsibility  of 
organization,  and  the  occupancy  of  the  domain 
very  dimly  defined  as  "  the  Ryver  of  Conecti- 
cott  "  in  the  agreement. 

This  was  no  easy  task.  It  was  one  of  finesse, 
of  diplomacy,  and  finally  one  of  arms.  Who 
were  the  parties  already  represented  there, 
and  zealous  to  maintain  their  claims  or  rights  ? 

57 


58  ROGER  LUDLOW 

First,  the  Indians,  —  original  land-owners  and 
proprietors,  — the  Sequins  and  Nawaas  of  the 
river  valley,  hemmed  in  by  the  Mohawks  on 
the  west,  and  on  the  east  by  the  conquerors  of 
the  river  tribes,  the  Pequots,  who  could  set  a 
thousand  warriors  in  the  field ;  the  Dutch, 
who  had  discovered  the  country,  bought  lands 
of  the  natives,  established  trade  with  them, 
and  built  the  "  House  of  Hope "  at  Hart- 
ford, ten  years  before  any  Englishman  came 
to  the  "  Quonehtacut"  ;  the  men  of  Plymouth, 
who  had  been  treated  with  scant  courtesy  at 
Boston,  as  to  the  Connecticut  occupation,  and 
then  had  set  up  a  trading  house  at  Windsor, 
on  lands  purchased  of  the  Indians  ;  and  lastly, 
the  company  sent  out  by  Saltonstall  under  the 
Say  and  Sele  patent,  which  also  sought  to  set- 
tle at  Windsor,  finding  the  pioneers  from 
Plymouth  in  possession,  and  a  party  from  Dor- 
chester breaking  ground  and  arranging  for  the 
arrival  of  the  people  from  that  plantation.  It 
was  long  before  "  ye  controversie  ended." 

It  is  needless  to  follow  in  detail  the  many 
steps  to  the  end  of  the  fierce  and  bitter  strife 
for  domination  'and  ownership  of  the  coveted 
lands.  It  resulted  in  the  supremacy  of  the 
Dorchester  claimants,  by  the  withdrawal  of 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  59 

the  Dutch,  the  abandonment  of  their  territo- 
rial claim  by  young  Winthrop  and  his  party 
and  their  settlement  at  Saybrook,  and  the  ulti- 
mate driving  out  of  the  Plymouth  men,  with 
whom  an  adjustment  was  last  made. 

"  The  trading  house  at  the  mouth  of  the  Farmington, 
which  William  Holmes  and  his  Plymouth  company  had 
built,  despite  the  blustering  of  the  Dutch,  seemed  to  the 
practical,  godly  people  of  Dorchester  set  apart  for  their 
own  uses  ;  and  it  became  the  rallying  point  of  the  con- 
gregation guided  and  inspired  by  John  Wareham,  and  in 
secular  affairs  by  Ludlow." 

Who  won  the  victory  in  this  contest  for  the 
Dorchester  man  ?  Who  stood  unmoved  in 
the  storm  of  promises,  persuasions,  and  threats, 
and  with  signal  ability  and  tact  and  force  held 
fast  to  the  possession  of  their  new  homes,  for 
the  little  band  of  his  people,  and  saved  them 
from  disaster  ?  Sir  Richard  Saltonstall  an- 
swered these  queries  for  all  time  in  a  let- 
ter describing  the  efforts  of  his  company  to 
seize  the  lands,  when  he  said  of  Ludlow,  "He 
was  the  cheffe  man  who  hindered  it." 

The  Dutch  cared  more  for  trade  than  colon- 
ization ;  and  their  claims  of  discovery,  of  pur- 
chase, of  sovereignty,  vanished  when  Capt. 


60  ROGER  LUDLOW 

John  Underbill  pasted  this  notice  on  the  doors 
of  their  "  House  of  Hope,"  at  Hartford  :  "  I, 
John  Underbill,  do  seize  this  house  and  land 
for  the  State  of  England,  by  virtue  of  the 
commission  granted  by  the  Providence  Plan- 
tation "  ;  and  the  General  Court  of  Connecti- 
cut sequestrated  all  the  property,  on  its  own 
authority,  despite  the  duplicate  sales  and  title 
deeds  of  the  braggart  captain. 

The  demands  of  Saltonstall  and  his  com- 
pany, represented  by  Francis  Stiles  and  his 
men,  instructed  to  impale  in  ground  where 
Saltonstall  appointed  them,  were  set  aside  by 
the  Dorchester  pioneers  under  Ludlow,  on 
the  ground  of  prior  right  to  this  "  Lord's 
waste  and  for  the  present  altogether  void  of 
inhabitants." 

The  real  controversy  as  to  the  Dorchester 
usurpation  is  set  in  a  clear  light  in  a  letter  o-f 
Jonathan  Brewster,  the  leader  of  the  Ply- 
mouth men,  who  had  been  two  years  on  the 
ground,  and  who  had  purchased  from  the 
Indians  the  open  meadows  —  the  bone  of 
contention  —  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Con- 
necticut, from  opposite  Podunk  River  north- 
ward nearly  seven  miles.  Brewster  writes,  July 
6,  1635  : 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  61 

"Ye  Massachusetts  men  are  coming  almost  daily, 
some  by  water,  some  by  land,  who  are  not  yet  deter- 
mined where  to  settle  ;  though  some  have  a  great  mind 
to  ye  place  we  are  upon.  .  .  .  What  they  will  do  I 
cannot  yet  resolve  you.  ...  I  shall  do  what  I  can 
to  withstand  them.  ...  I  hope  they  will  hear  to  rea- 
son, as  we  were  here  first,  and  bought  the  land,  and  have 
since  held  a  chargeable  possession." 

Small  parties  from  the  three  Bay  towns, 
Dorchester,  Newtown,  and  Watertown,  came 
to  Connecticut,  to  choose  locations,  and  make 
ready  for  their  families  in  1635  ;  the  chief  im- 
migration taking  place  in  1636.  Ludlow  was 
among  the  first  comers,  that  he  might  hurry 
on  the  Dorchester  occupancy  before  stronger 
forces  gathered  from  any  source,  and  before 
Saltonstall's  agent  could  get  further  instruc- 
tions from  England.  Matthew  Grant,  the  sur- 
veyor, says  he  began  to  set  out  men's  lots  in 
1635,  and  a  large  one  was  allotted  to  Ludlow 
in  this  first  distribution. 

When  Sir  Henry  Vane,  John  Winthrop, 
Jr.,  and  Hugh  Peters  demanded  a  "  pertinent 
and  plain  answer  from  Mr.  Ludlowe,  Mr.  Mav- 
erick, Mr.  Newberry,  and  Mr.  Stoughton,  and 
the  rest  engaged  in  the  business  of  Conn,  plan- 
tation in  the  town  of  Dorchester,"  the  answer 


62  ROGER  LUDLOW 

was  written  in  Ludlow's  presence  there,  who 
had  returned  from  the  new  plantation,  after 
opening  his  campaign  for  possession,  and  was 
then  supervising  the  departure,  and  in  the 
busy  stir  of  the  people  to  join  their  friends 
on  the  river, - — more  than  all,  in  the  unyielding 
spirit  of  the  men  who  had  wrung  from  the 
government  a  reluctant  leave  to  remove,  and 
who  counted  in  their  ranks  the  ministers,  sol- 
diers, statesmen,  artisans,  husbandmen,  who 
were  to  plant  the  three  towns,  the  nucleus  of 
the  State,  and  stand  fast  in  the  storm  of  war 
and  the  sunshine  of  peace. 

At  the  fall  of  winter  in  1635,  tne  advance 
parties  from  Massachusetts  were  scattered 
along  the  river  from  Windsor  to  Wethersfield  ; 
and  the  pioneers  of  the  Saltonstall  patentees 
were  holding  out  against  the  Dutch  at  the 
river's  mouth.  Snow  came  early  to  a  great 
depth,  food  and  clothing  were  lost  en  route, 
and  the  settlers  suffered  the  extremes  of  hard- 
ship and  privation.  Some  went  back  to  their 
homes  by  land  or  water ;  others  withstood  all 
perils  and  distress,  and  stayed  through  the 
winter.  Among  those  who  remained  were 
some  of  Ludlow's  Dorchester  company  with 
their  families,  who  encamped  in  part  near  the 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  63 

Plymouth  trading  house,  and  in  part  in  the 
open  meadows  on  the  east  bank  of  the  river. 
The  whole  country  was  covered  with  a  dense 
primeval  forest,  save  where  the  Indians  had 
made  clearings  along  the  streams  in  the  mea- 
dows, and  cultivated  them ;  and  this  accounts 
for  the  bitter  contest  for  the  possession  of  the 
open  meadow  lands.  They  fared  hard  ;  their 
supplies  were  soon  gone ;  game  was  scarce, 
and  acorns  and  ground  nuts  were  counted  in 
their  articles  of  food  ;  but  they  held  on. 

Ludlow  returned  from  Boston  early  in  1636, 
and  was  with  the  Dorchester  people  at  Wind- 
sor, May  6,  to  open  his  duties  as  the  head  of 
the  Massachusetts  commission,  defend  his  little 
colony  from  attacks,  invent  and  put  into  oper- 
ation the  machinery  of  government,  and  begin 
his  career  of  nineteen  years  of  service  to  his 
state. 

To  govern  the  people  was  the  first  duty  of 
the  Massachusetts  commission.  The  first 
court  was  promptly  organized,  and  held  at 
Hartford,  May  ist,  1637,  Ludlow  presiding, 
with  four  lay  associates  —  Steele,  Phelps, 
Westwood,  and  Warde.  These  men  never 
questioned  their  own  authority ;  and  they  ad- 
ministered the  affairs  of  the  plantations,  civil 


64  ROGER  LUDLOW 

and  criminal,  with  a  strong  hand.  Eight  ses- 
sions of  the  court  were  held  within  a  year  ;  the 
trained  lawyer  at  the  head  framed  the  orders 
and  decisions,  and  adapted  the  forms  of  pro- 
cedure suited  to  the  doing  of  justice,  with  due 
order  and  dignity. 

The  court  dealt  with  serious  matters  from 
the  beginning.  These  were  some  of  the  sub- 
jects of  its  orders  :  prohibition  of  sales  of  arms 
and  ammunition  to  the  Indians,  appointment 
of  constables  and  watchmen,  formation  of  a 
church  covenant  by  consent  of  other  churches, 
the  education  of  children,  inventories  and  set- 
tlement of  estates,  military  trainings,  allotting 
and  surveying  lands,  levying  taxes,  establish- 
ing town  boundaries,  fixing  land  damages, 
changing  town  names,  and  solemnly  guarding 
the  household  against  the  proclivities  and  fas- 
cinations of  the  bachelors  by  an  order  that 
"  Noe  yonge  man  yl  is  neither  married,  nor 
hath  any  servants  &  be  noe  publicke  officer, 
shall  keepe  howse  by  himself,  without  consent 
of  the  Towne  where  he  lives  first  had,  under 
paine  of  20  s.  pr  weeke  "  ;  and  each  master  of 
a  family  who  gave  them  "  habitacon  or  inter- 
teinment,"  without  consent  of  the  town  was 
subjected  to  the  same  penalty.  Certainly  a 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  65 

wide  range  of  questions  was  this,  for  the  deter- 
mination of  a  court  in  its  first  year,  with  dis- 
cretionary power  and  without  appeal,  and  with 
no  guide  but  its  learning,  love  of  exact  justice, 
and  sound  common  sense. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

A  Crisis — "The  Pequoitt  Potencie" — Indian  Atrocities — Declara- 
tion of  War — Civilization  vs.  Barbarism — Mason's  Expedition — 
The  Fort  Fight  —  Stone's  Thanksgiving  —  Mason's  Battle — 
Ludlow's  Foresight — His  Letter  to  Pynchon — The  Swamp  Fight 
Uncas  and  Miantonomo — Fair  Unquowa — Ludlow's  Services 
1635-1639 

SCARCELY  had  the  colonists  in  the  three 
settlements  on  the  river — Windsor,  Hartford, 
and  Wethersfield — made  good  their  claims  to 
ownership  and  occupancy  under  Ludlow's 
leadership,  and  set  up  their  standards  of  inde- 
pendence under  exigent  laws  and  orders  of  their 
own  making,  when  a  crisis  came  that  threatened 
their  destruction.  Only  instant,  resolute  action 
saved  them.  It  was  taken  May  i,  1637. 

"  It  is  ordered  that  there  shalbe  an  offensive  warr  ag' 
the  Pequoitt,  and  that  there  shalbe  90  men  levied  out  of 
the  3  Plantacons,  Hartford,  Weathersfield  and  Windsor 
(viz1),  out  of  Hartford  42,  Windsor  30,  Weathersfield  18  : 
under  the  Comande  of  Captain  Jo  :  Mason." 

In  this  order  of  the  General  Court  held 
at  Hartford  is  written  the  story  of  a  great 

66 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  67 

tragedy,  itself  the  outcome  of  lesser  tragedies 
more  poignant  and  terrible  to  their  victims. 
The  Pequots,  enraged  at  the  sale  of  lands  on 
the  river  by  the  tribes  they  had  conquered, 
resolved  upon  a  war  of  extermination  against 
the  settlers.  They  had  already  opened  their 
campaign  of  murder  and  assassination,  arson, 
captivity,  and  torture.  Ambush  and  surprise, 
torch,  tomahawk,  and  scalping  knife  were  the 
instruments  of  their  hellish  vengeance. 

This  is  but  a  partial  record  of  Indian  atroci- 
ties before  the  declaration  of  war  : 

Murder  of  Captain  Stone,  and  crew  of  twelve 
men,  when  going  up  the  river  to  trade. 

Murder  of  two  men  above  Saybrook,  one, 
Brookfield,  dying  by  torture. 

Murder  of  John  Oldham,  the  founder  of 
Wethersfield,  at  Block  Island. 

Murder  of  Mitchell,  brother  of  the  Cam- 
bridge minister ;  burned  at  the  stake. 

Murder  of  two  soldiers  in  the  Saybrook 
cornfield ;  bodies  cut  in  halves  and  hung  on 
trees. 

Attack  on  Gardiner's  fort  at  Saybrook,  in 
which  he  and  two  others  were  wounded,  and 
two  were  killed. 

Massacre  at   Wethersfield,   April  23,    1637, 


68  ROGER  LUDLOW 

when  one  hundred  Indians  fell  on  the  settlers 
at  work  in  the  fields,  and  killed  one  woman, 
one  child,  and  seven  men,  and  carried  two 
young  women  into  captivity. 

More  than  thirty  English  lives  were  sacri- 
ficed before  the  famous  order  was  written. 

In  the  presence  of  such  horrors,  who  values 
the  sentimental  charge  that  the  war  was  cruel 
and  unrighteous  ?  It  was  civilization  against 
barbarism.  It  was  a  mighty  blow  struck  in 
self-defence,  by  a  handful  of  settlers  against  a 
horde  of  demons ;  sachem  and  sagamore 
against  soldier  and  legist,  sannup  and  squaw 
against  husbandman  and  housewife  ;  war-drum 
against  church-bell ;  wickiup  against  meeting- 
house ;  war-whoop  against  psalm ;  savagery, 
squalor,  devilish  rites  and  incantations,  against 
prayers,  and  hymns,  and  exhortations ;  the 
native  in  his  paint  and  feathers  against  the 
Englishman  of  sand  with  his  pike  and  musket ; 
Sassacus  and  Sowheag,  Tatobam  and  Sunck- 
quasson,  against  Ludlow  and  Hooker,  Stone 
and  Mason ;  warfare,  rapine  and  desolation 
against  peace  and  plenty,  enlightenment  and 
culture,  and  all  the  social  forces  that  bear 
fruitage  under  the  sunlight  of  civilization. 

Down  the  river  in  "  a  pink  a  pinnace  and  a 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  69 

shallop  "  went  the  little  company  (seventy-seven 
in  all  when  they  went  into  action),  and  sailing 
eastward  to  Narragansett  Bay,  they  landed,  and 
after  a  wearisome  and  perilous  march  through 
the  Narragansetts'  country,  with  some  scared 
and  useless  Indian  auxiliaries  and  guides,  in  the 
early  morning  of  May  26,  1637,  they  fell  upon 
the  sleeping  Pequots  in  their  fort  on  Pequot 
Hill,  smote  them  hip  and  thigh,  and  wiped  out 
between  six  and  seven  hundred  warriors  —  the 
flower  of  their  race,  according  to  the  Indians' 
own  admission.  It  was  courage  and  endurance 
that  wrought  the  great  deliverance. 

Ludlow  presided  at  the  court  which  declared 
the  "  offensive  warr."  It  was  chiefly  due  to  him 
that  the  desperate  task  was  undertaken.  He 
knew  the  Indians  in  Massachusetts  and  Con- 
necticut ;  he  had  studied  their  character,  had  a 
personal  acquaintance  with  some  of  the  chiefs, 
and  was  alive  to  the  vital  necessity  of  prompt 
act-ion,  of  destroying  the  conspiracy  at  one  bold 
stroke  ;  and  it  was  done. 

Upon  Ludlow  chiefly  fell  the  duty  of  de- 
fence of  the  settlers  and  their  families,  in  the 
stockade  at  Windsor  and  along  the  river,  while 
the  soldiers  were  away  on  the  Pequot  expedi- 
tion. More  than  one-half  of  the  fighting  men 


7o  ROGER  LUDLOW 

had  gone.  Watch  and  ward  night  and  day, 
anxiety  and  alarm,  waited  on  the  little  compa- 
nies in  their  villages  until  news  of  the  victory 
brought  relief. 

Deep  are  the  pathos  and  devotion  in  his  let- 
ter of  those  days  to  his  friend  Pynchon,  in  a 
like  stress  at  Agawam,  May  17,  1637. 

"  I  have  received  your  letter,  wherein  you  express  that 
you  are  well  fortified,  but  few  hands.  I  would  desire 
you  to  be  careful  and  watchful  that  you  be  not  betrayed 
by  friendship.  For  my  part,  my  spirit  is  ready  to  sink 
within  me,  when  upon  alarms  which  are  daily  I  think  of 
your  condition  ;  that  if  the  case  be  never  so  dangerous, 
we  can  neither  help  you  nor  you  us.  But  I  must  confess 
both  you  and  ourselves  do  stand  merely  by  the  power  of 
our  God  :  therefore  he  must  and  ought  to  have  all  the 
praise  of  it.  I  can  assure  you  it  is  our  great  grief  we 
can  not,  for  our  plantations  are  so  gleaned  by  that  small 
fleet  we  sent  out  that  those  that  remain  are  not  able  to 
supply  our  watches,  which  are  day  and  night,  that  our 
people  are  scarce  able  to  stand  upon  their  legs  ;  and  for 
planting,  we  are  in  like  condition  with  you  ;  what  we 
plant  is  before  our  doors,  little  anywhere  else.  Our  fleet 
went  away  tomorrow  will  be  seven  night." 

Westward,  toward  the  Mohawk  country,  in 
the  following  July,  fled  the  remnant  of  the 
Pequots,  after  the  battle  at  their  stronghold ; 
and  they  finally  stood  at  bay  in  a  dense  thicket 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  71 

in  Fairfield.  Ludlow  was  present  at  this  so- 
called  "  Swamp  Fight,"  having  joined  the  forces 
of  Mason  and  Stoughton  and  their  Indian 
allies  at  Saybrook.  After  a  gallant  defence, 
several  of  the  sachems  and  warriors  were  killed  ; 
about  two  hundred  prisoners  were  taken  and  al- 
lotted to  the  Mohegans  and  Narragansetts,  and 
an  end  forever  put  to  the  "  Pequoitt  Potencie"  ; 
and  after  the  death  of  the  noted  Sassacus,  a 
compact  of  peace  was  made  at  Hartford  with 
Uncas  and  Miantonomo,  by  the  magistrates  of 
Connecticut  in  behalf  of  the  colonies,  under 
which  full  mastery  was  given  to  the  English, 
until  King  Philip's  war.  It  was  not  a  "  bene- 
volent assimilation." 

It  was  on  this  march,  and  in  scouting  the 
adjacent  country,  that  Englishmen  first  saw  the 
beautiful  region  about  Quinnipiac.  Fair  Un- 
quowa,  "beyond  Pequannocke,"  with  its  hills 
and  streams,  rich  intervales  and  forest  lands, 
captured  the  imagination  of  Ludlow.  At  the 
earliest  moment  he  made  another  visit  there, 
sent  out  some  planters  from  Windsor,  and 
there  he  stood  for  his  last  service  to  his  state, 
when  in  his  conscientious  and  hazardous  de- 
fence of  this  frontier  post  against  the  Dutch 
and  Mohawks  he  was  left  alone,  and  made  the 


72  ROGER  LUDLOW 

target  of  criticism  and  reproof  by  his  associates 
in  office. 

Ludlow's  services  to  Connecticut,  from  the 
inception  of  its  colonization  to  the  adoption  of 
the  Fundamental  Orders  at  Hartford,  Jan.  14, 
1639, —  as  shown  in  a  later  summary, —  were  of 
the  highest  order,  and  always  equal  to  the 
greatest  demands  upon  his  experience,  tact, 
courage,  foresight,  and  judicial  qualities. 

What  was  his  share  in  that  great  historic 
work,  his  honor  on  that  great  history-making 
day  in  this  commonwealth, —  its  birthday  two 
hundred  and  sixty  years  ago,  when  the  colo- 
nists came  to  declare  their  independence  ? 


CHAPTER  IX. 

The  Fundamental  Orders  —  No  Record  —  None  Desired  —  Opinions 
of  Hoadley  and  Trumbull  —  At  their  Adoption  —  Leaders — 
New  Chapter  in  History  —  Text  of  the  Constitution  —  Law  of 
the  People  —  Views  of  Jurists  and  Historians  —  Bancroft  — 
Palfrey  —  Fiske  —  Green  —  Tarbox  —  Bryce  —  Sanford  — 
Trumbull  —  Robinson  —  Johnston  —  Hamersley  —  Buslmell  — 
Day  —  Brinley. 

No  record  exists  of  the  proceedings  at  the 
adoption  of  the  constitution  of  1639,  ^>ut  tne 
constitution  itself.  No  record  of  the  court,  no 
report  of  the  debates,  is  known  to  history.  It 
is  the  judgment  of  the  most  learned  scholars, 
Dr.  Charles  J.  Hoadley  and  the  late  Dr.  J. 
Hammond  Trumbull,  that  the  men  who  were 
foremost  in  that  great  matter  desired  that  no 
record  of  the  transactions  should  be  preserved ; 
that  they  knew  the  Fundamental  Orders  would 
explain  themselves  —  they  needed  no  interpre- 
ter ;  that  in  letter  and  spirit  they  would  find 
instant  response  and  approval  in  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  the  people ;  and  it  was  so.  It  has 


74  ROGER  LUDLOW 

been   justly  called   a  self-appointed   constitu- 
tion. 

But  there  were  other  reasons  for  the  silence 
of  the  records.  England  was  watchful  and 
suspicious  of  this  vigorous  infant  colony ;  and 
the  commission  from  Massachusetts  had  ex- 
pired. The  men  of  the  three  towns  were  a 
law  only  to  themselves.  It  is  known  that  they 
were  in  earnest  for  the  establishment  of  a  gov- 
ernment on  broad  lines ;  and  it  is  certain  that 
the  ministers  and  captains,  the  magistrates  and 
men  of  affairs,  forceful  in  the  settlements  from 
the  beginning,  were  the  men  who  took  the 
lead,  guided  the  discussions,  and  found  the 
root  of  the  whole  matter  in  the  first  written 
declaration  of  independence  in  these  historic 
orders.  Who  were  they  ?  Surely  these  men 
were  there  :  From  Windsor,  Ludlow,  Mason, 
Hull,  Phelps,  and  Marshall  ;  from  Wethers- 
field,  Mitchell,  Ward,  Raynor,  Plum,  and  Hub- 
bard  ;  from  Hartford,  Haynes,  Hooker,  Welles, 
Webster,  Talcott,  Steele,  and  Hopkins.  With 
these  leaders  in  thought  and  action  are  grouped 
other  strong  personalities :  Wareham,  Ros- 
siter,  Wolcott,  Seeley,  Wyllys,  Allyn,  Chester, 
Bull,  and  Goodwin, —  all  the  chief  planters  of 
the  towns  (not  alone  the  dignitaries  of  the 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  75 

General  Court,  as  some  authorities  hold), — 
inspired,  providentially  directed,  to  one  great 
purpose.  They  wrote  a  new  chapter  in  the 
world's  history  on  that  day,  January  14,  1639. 
It  was  this : 

THE    CONSTITUTION   OF    1639. 

Forasmuch  as  it  hath  pleased  the  Allmighty  God  by 
the  wise  disposition  of  his  diuyne  providence  so  to  Order 
and  dispose  of  things  that  we  the  Inhabitants  and  Resi- 
dents of  Windsor,  Harteford  and  Wethersfield  are  now 
cohabiting  and  dwelling  in  and  vppon  the  River  of  Con- 
ectecotte  and  the  Lands  thereunto  adioyneing  ;  And 
well  knowing  where  a  people  are  gathered  togather  the 
word  of  God  requires  that  to  mayntayne  the  peace  and 
vnion  of  a  such  people  there  should  be  an  orderly  and 
decent  Gouerment  established  according  to  God,  to 
order  and  dispose  of  the  affayres  of  the  people  at  all 
seasons  as  occation  shall  require  ;  doe  therefore  asso- 
ciate and  conioyne  our  selues  to  be  as  one  Publike  State 
or  Commonwelth  ;  and  doe,  for  our  selues  and  our  Suc- 
cessors and  such  as  shall  be  adioyned  to  vs  att  any  tyme 
hereafter,  enter  into  Combination  and  Confederacon  to- 
gather, to  mayntayne  and  presearue  the  liberty  and  pur- 
ity of  the  gospell  of  our  Lord  Jesus  which  we  now 
professe,  as  also  the  disciplyne  of  the  Churches,  which 
according  to  the  truth  of  the  said  gospell  is  now  prac- 
tised amongst  vs  ;  As  also  in  our  Ciuell  Affaires  to  be 
guided  and  gouerned  according  to  such  Laws,  Rules, 
Orders  and  decrees  as  shall  be  made,  ordered  &  decreed, 
as  followeth  : 


76  ROGER  LUDLOW 

1.  It  is  ordered,  sentenced   and  decreed,  that   there 
shall  be  yerely  two  generall  Assemblies  or  Courts,  the 
first  on  the  second  thursday  in  Aprill,  the  other  the  sec- 
ond thursday  in  September,  following  :  the  first  shall  be 
called  the  Courte  of  Election,  wherein  shall  be  yerely 
Chosen  from  tyme  to  tyme  soe  many  Magestrats  and 
other   publike    Officers    as    shall    be    found    requisitte  ; 
Whereof  one  to  be  chosen  Gouernour  for  the  yeare  ensue- 
ing  and  vntill  another  be  chosen,  and  noe  other  Mages- 
trate  to  be  chosen  for  more  than  one  yeare  ;  provided 
alwayes  there  be  sixe   chosen    besids   the   Gouernour ; 
which  being  chosen  and  sworn  according  to  an  Oath  re- 
corded for  that  purpose  shall  haue  power  to  administer 
justice  according  to  the  Lawes  here  established,  and  for 
want  thereof  according  to  the  rule  of  the  word  of  God  ; 
which  choise  shall  be  made  by  all  that  are  admitted  free- 
men and  haue  taken  the  Oath  of  Fidellity,  and  doe  co- 
habitte  within  this  Jurisdiction  (hauing  beene  admitted 
Inhabitants  by  the  major  part   of  the  Towne  wherein 
they  Hue)  or  the  mayor  parte  of  such  as  shall  be  then 
present. 

2.  It  is  Ordered,  sentensed    and   decreed,  that   the 
Election  of  the  aforesaid  Magestrats   shall  be  on  this 
manner  :  euery  person  present  and  quallified  for  choyse 
shall  bring  in  (to  the  persons  deputed  to  receaue  them) 
one  single  paper  with  the  name  of  him  written  in  yt  whom 
he  desires  to  haue   Gouernour,   and  he   that  hath  the 
greatest  number  of  papers  shall  be  Gouernour  for  that 
yeare.     And  the  rest  of  the  Magestrats  or  publike  Offi- 
cers to  be  chosen  in  this  manner  :  The  Secretary  for  the 
tyme  being  shall  first  read  the  names  of  all  that  are  to  be 
put  to  choise  and  then  shall  seuerally    nominate  them 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  77 

distinctly,  and  euery  one  that  would  haue  the  person  nom- 
inated to  be  chosen  shall  bring  in  one  single  paper  written 
vppon,  and  he  that  would  not  haue  him  chosen  shall 
bring  in  a  blanke  ;  and  euery  one  that  hath  more  written 
papers  than  blanks  shall  be  a  Magestrat  for  that  yeare  ; 
which  papers  shall  be  receaued  and  told  by  one  or  more 
that  shall  be  then  chosen  by  the  court  and  sworne  to  be 
faythfull  therein  ;  but  in  case  there  should  not  be  sixe 
chosen  as  aforesaid,  besids  the  Gouernour,  out  of  those 
which  are  nominated,  then  he  or  they  which  haue  the 
most  written  papers  shall  be  a  Magestrate  or  Magestrats 
for  the  ensuing  yeare,  to  make  vp  the  aforesaid  number. 

3.  It  is  Ordered,  sentenced   and   decreed,  that   the 
Secretary  shall  not  nominate  any  person,  nor  shall  any 
person  be  chosen  newly  into  the  Magestracy  which  was 
not  propownded  in  some  Generall  Courte  before,  to  be 
nominated  the  next  Election  ;  and  to  that  end  yt  shall 
be  lawfull  for  ech  of  the  Townes  aforesaid   by  their 
deputyes  to  nominate  any  two  whom  they  conceaue  fitte 
to  be  putte  to  Election  ;  and  the  Courte  may  ad  so  many 
more  as  they  judge  requissitt. 

4.  It  is  Ordered,    sentenced  and   decreed   that  noe 
person  be  chosen  Gouernor  aboue  once  in  two  yeares, 
and  that  the  Gouernor  be  always  a  member  of  some  ap- 
proved  congregation  and   formerly  of   the  Magestracy 
within  this  Jurisdiction  ;  and  all  the  Magestrats  Freemen 
of  this  Commonwelth  ;  and  that  no  Magestrate  or  other 
publike  officer  shall  execute  any  parte   of  his  or  their 
Office  before  they  are  seuerally  sworne,  which  shall  be 
done  in  the  face  of  the  Courte  if  they  be  present,  and  in 
case  of  absence  by  some  deputed  for  that  purpose. 

5.  It   is   Ordered,    sentenced   and   decreed,  that   to 


78  ROGER  LUDLOW 

the  aforesaid  Courte  of  Election  the  seuerall  Townes 
shall  send  their  deputyes,  and  when  the  Elections  are 
ended  they  may  proceed  in  any  publike  searuice  as  at 
other  Courts.  Also  the  other  Generall  Courte  in 
September  shall  be  for  makeing  of  lawes,  and  any  other 
publike  occation  which  conserns  the  good  of  the 
Commonwelth. 

6.  It    is    Ordered,  sentenced    and  decreed,  that  the 
Gouernor  shall,  either  by  himselfe  or  by  the  secretary, 
send  out  summons  to  the  Constables  of  euery  Towne  for 
the  cauleing  of  these  two  standing  Courts,  one  month  at 
lest  before  their  seuerall  tymes  ;  And  also  if  the  Gouer- 
nor and  the  gretest  parte  of  the  Magestrats  see  cause 
vppon  any  spetiall  occation   to  call  a  generall  Courte, 
they  may  giue  order  to  the  secretary  soe  to  doe  within 
fowerteene    dayes   warneing ;    and    if    vrgent   necessity 
so    require,  vppon    a   shorter  notice,  giueing   sufficient 
grownds  for  yt  to  the  deputyes  when  they  meete,  or  els 
be  questioned  for  the  same  ;  And  if  the  Gouernor  and 
Mayor  parte  of  Magestrats  shall  ether  neglect  or  refuse 
to  call  the  two  Generall  standing  Courts  or  ether  of  them, 
as  also  at  other  tymes  when  the  occations  of  the  Com- 
monwelth require,  the  Freemen  thereof,  or  the  Mayor 
parte  of  them,  shall  petition  to  them  soe  to  doe  ;  if  then 
yt  be  ether  denyed  or  neglected  the  said  Freemen  or  the 
Mayor  parte  of  them  shall  haue  power  to  giue  order  to 
the  Constables  of  the  seuerall  Townes  to  doe  the  same, 
and  so  may  meete  togather,  and  chuse  to  themselues  a 
Moderator,  and  may  proceed  to  do  any  Acte  of  power, 
which  any  other  Generall  Courte  may. 

7.  It  is  Ordered,  sentenced  and  decreed  that  after 
there  are  warrants  giuen  out  for  any  of  the  said  Generall 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  79 

Courts,  the  Constable  or  Constables  of  ech  Towne  shall 
forthwith  give  notice  distinctly  to  the  inhabitants  of  the 
same,  in  some  Publike  Assembly  or  by  goeing  or  sending 
from  howse  to  howse,  that  at  a  place  and  tyme  by  him  or 
them  lymited  and  sett,  they  meet  and  assemble  them- 
selues  togather  to  elect  and  chuse  certen  deputyes  to  be 
att  the  Generall  Courte  then  following  to  agitate  the 
afayres  of  the  commonwelth ;  which  said  Deputyes 
shall  be  chosen  by  all  that  are  admitted  Inhabitants  in 
the  seuerall  Townes  and  haue  taken  the  oath  of  fidellity  ; 
prouided  that  non  be  chosen  a  Deputy  for  any  Generall 
Courte  which  is  not  a  Freeman  of  this  Commonwelth. 

The  aforesaid  deputyes  shall  be  chosen  in  manner  fol- 
lowing :  euery  person  that  is  present  and  quallified  as 
before  expressed,  shall  bring  the  names  of  such,  written 
in  seuerall  papers,  as  they  desire  to  haue  chosen  for  that 
Imployment,  and  these  3  or  4,  more  or  lesse,  being  the 
number  agreed  on  to  be  chosen  for  that  tyme,  that  haue 
greatest  number  of  papers  written  for  them  shall  be 
deputyes  for  that  Courte  ;  whose  names  shall  be  endorsed 
on  the  backe  side  of  the  warrant  and  returned  into  the 
Courte,  with  the  Constable  or  Constables  hand  vnto  the 
same. 

8.  It  is  Ordered,  sentenced  and  decreed,  that  Wynd- 
sor,  Hartford  and  Wethersfield  shall  haue  power, 
ech  Towne,  to  send  fower  of  their  freemen  as  their 
deputyes  to  euery  Generall  Courte  ;  and  whatsoeuer 
other  Townes  shall  be  hereafter  added  to  this  Jurisdic- 
tion, they  shall  send  so  many  deputyes  as  the  Courte 
shall  judge  meete,  a  reasonable  proportion  to  the  number 
of  freemen  that  are  in  the  said  Townes  being  to  be 
attended  therein  ;  which  deputyes  shall  haue  the  power 


8o  ROGER  LUDLOW 

of  the  whole  Tovvne  to  giue  their  voats  and  alowance  to 
all  such  lawes  and  orders  as  may  be  for  the  publike  good, 
and  unto  which  the  said  Townes  are  to  be  bownd. 

9.  It  is  Ordered  and  decreed,  that  the  deputyes  thus 
chosen  shall  haue  power  and  liberty  to  appoynt  a  tyme 
and   place   of    meeting   togather   before   any   Generall 
Courte  to  aduise  and  consult  of  all  such  things  as  may 
concerne  the  good  of  the  publike,  as  also  to  examine 
their  owne   Elections,  whether  according  to  the  order, 
and  if  they  or  the  greatest  parte  of  them  find  any  such 
election  to  be  illegall  they  may  seclud  such  for  present 
from   their   meeting,  and   returne  the   same  and   their 
resons  to  the  Courte  ;  and  if  yt  proue  true,  the  Courte 
may   fyne  the  party  or   partyes   so   intruding   and  the 
Towne,  if  they  see  cause,  and  giue  out  a  warrant  to  goe 
to  a  newe  election  in  a  legall  way,  either  in  parte  or  in 
whole.     Also  the  said  deputyes  shall  haue  power  to  fyne 
any  that  shall  be  disorderly  at  their  meetings,  or  for  not 
comming  in  due  tyme  or  place  according  to  appoynt- 
ment  ;  and  they  may  returne  the  said   fynes  into  the 
Courte  if  yt  be  refused  to  be  paid,  and  the  Tresurer  to 
take  notice  of  yt,  and  to  estreete  or  levy  the  same  as 
he  does  other  fynes. 

10.  It  is  Ordered,  sentenced  and  decreed,  that  euery 
Generall  Courte,  except  such  as  through  neglect  of  the 
Gouernor  and  the  greatest  parte  of  Magestrats  the  Free- 
men themselves  doe  call,  shall  consist  of  the  Gouernor, 
or  some  one  chosen    to  moderate   the  Courte,    and   4 
other  Magestrats  at  lest,  with  the  mayor   parte  of   the 
deputyes  of  the  seuerall  Townes  legally  chosen  ;  and  in 
case  the  Freemen  or  mayor  parte  of  them,  through  neg- 
lect or  refusall  of  the  Gouernor  and  mayor  parte  of  the 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  81 

magestrats,  shall  call  a  Courte,  yt  shall  consist  of  the 
mayor  parte  of  Freemen  that  are  present  or  their 
deputyes,  with  a  Moderator  chosen  by  them  :  In  which 
said  Generall  Courts  shall  consist  the  supreme  power  of 
the  Commonwelth,  and  they  only  shall  haue  power  to 
make  lawes  or  repeale  them,  to  graunt  leuyes,  to  admitt  of 
Freemen,  dispose  of  lands  vndisposed  of,  to  seuerall 
Townes  or  persons,  and  also  shall  haue  power  to  call 
ether  Courte  or  Magestrate  or  any  other  person  whatso- 
euer  into  question  for  any  misdemeanour,  and  may  for 
just  causes  displace  or  deale  otherwise  according  to  the 
nature  of  the  offence  ;  and  also  may  deale  in  any  other 
matter  that  concerns  the  good  of  this  commonwelth, 
excepte  election  of  Magestrats,  which  shall  be  done  by 
the  whole  boddy  of  Freemen. 

In  which  Courte  the  Gouernour  or  Moderator  shall 
haue  power  to  o'rder  the  Courte  to  giue  liberty  of  spech, 
and  silence  vnceasonable  and  disorderly  speakeings,  to 
put  all  things  to  voate,  and  in  case  the  voate  be  equall 
to  haue  the  casting  voice.  But  none  of  these  Courts 
shall  be  adiorned  or  dissolued  without  the  consent  of 
the  maior  parte  of  the  Courte. 

ii.  It  is  ordered,  sentenced  and  decreed,  that  when 
any  Generall  Courte  vppon  the  occations  of  the  Com- 
monwelth haue  agreed  upon  any  summe  or  summes  of 
mony  to  be  leuyed  vppon  the  seuerall  Townes  within 
this  Jurisdiction,  that  a  Committee  be  chosen  to  sett  out 
and  appoynt  what  shall  be  the  proportion  of  euery 
Towne  to  pay  of  the  said  leuy,  provided  the  Committees 
be  made  vp  of  an  equal  number  out  of  each  Towne. 

i4th  January,  1639,  the  n  Orders  abouesaid  are 
voted. 

6 


82  ROGER  LUDLOW 

Jurists,  historians,  and  scholars  accord  to 
these  Fundamental  Orders  a  unique  place 
among  political  constitutions.  And  justly  so, 
since  they  are  inseparable  from  any  intelligent 
appreciation  of  the  character  and  motives  of 
the  men  who  inspired,  framed,  and  adopted 
them ;  and  they  underlie  all  the  American 
declarations  of  the  rights  of  man,  the  organic 
law  of  the  state  and  the  nation,  the  law  and 
the  gospel  of  government  by  the  people. 

What  some  of  the  authorities  say : 

"  From  this  seed  sprang  the  constitution  of  Connecti- 
cut, first  in  the  series  of  written  American  constitutions 
framed  by  the  people,  for  the  people.  .  .  . 

"  Nearly  two  centuries  have  elapsed  ;  the  world  has 
been  wiser  by  various  experience  ;  political  institutions 
have  become  the  theme  on  which  the  most  powerful 
and  cultivated  minds  have  been  employed  ;  dynasties  of 
kings  have  been  dethroned,  recalled,  dethroned  again, 
and  so  many  constitutions  have  been  framed  or  re- 
formed, stifled  or  subverted,  that  memory  may  despair 
of  a  completed  catalogue  :  but  the  people  of  Connecti- 
cut have  found  no  reason  to  deviate  from  the  govern- 
ment established  by  their  fathers." — BANCROFT  :  History 
of  the  United  States. 

"  It  was  the  first  written  constitution  known  to  history, 
that  created  a  government." — FISKE  :  Beginnings  of  New 
England. 

"  The  whole  constitution  was  that  of  an  independent 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  83 

state.  It  continued  in  force,  with  very  little  alteration, 
a  hundred  and  eighty  years." — PALFREY  :  History  of  New 
England. 

"  This  constitution  defined  the  laws,  rules  and  regula- 
tions of  a  government  created  by  the  people." — TARBOX  : 
Organization  of  Civil  Government. 

"  The  eleven  fundamental  orders,  with  their  preamble, 
present  the  first  example  in  history  of  a  written  constitu- 
tion."— GREEN  :  Short  History  of  the  English  People. 

"  The  oldest  truly  political  constitution  in  America  is 
the  instrument  called  the  Fundamental  Orders  of  Con- 
necticut, framed  by  the  inhabitants  of  Windsor,  Hart- 
ford and  Wethersfield  in  1638, —  memorable  year,  when 
the  ecclesiastical  revolt  of  Scotland  saved  the  liberties 
of  England." — BRYCE  :  American  Commonwealth. 

"  One  of  the  most  free  and  happy  constitutions  of  civil 
government." — TRUMBULL  :  History  of  Connecticut. 

"  The  first  constitution  ever  written  and  adopted  by 
the  suffrages  of  a  people." — SANFORD  :  History  of  Con- 
necticut. 

"  No  king,  no  congress,  presided  over  its  birth  ;  its 
seed  was  in  the  three  towns.  So  far  as  its  provisions  are 
concerned,  the  King,  the  Parliament,  the  Warwick 
grant,  the  Say  and  Sele  grant,  might  as  well  have  been 
non-existent :  Connecticut  was  as  absolutely  a  state  in 
1639  as  in  1776." — JOHNSTON  :  History  of  Connecticut. 

"  In  this  instrument,  quaint  in  phrase,  but  strangely 
comprehensive  in  thought,  reverent  to  God  but  aggres- 
sive and  bold  to  all  human  beings  of  rank  and  authority, 


84  ROGER  LUDLOW 

we  have  the  first  written  constitution  in  history,  adopted 
by  a  free  people,  which  asked  consent  from  no  king  and 
recognized  no  earthly  allegiance  but  to  the  sovereign 
commonwealth." — ROBINSON,  H.  C.  :  Connecticut  Consti- 
tution. 

"  This  remarkable  document  has  been  called,  and 
with  a  certain  import  truly  called,  the  first  written  con- 
stitution. It  did,  however,  formulate  into  solemn  dec- 
laration one  of  the  two  essential  principles  assumed  to 
be  axiomatic  by  the  American  idea  of  government ;  /.  e., 
sovereignty,  by  virtue  of  the  divine  will  and  law,  resides 
in  the  people,  who  set  the  bounds  and  limitations  of  the 
power  they  entrust  to  officers  and  magistrates."  —  HAM- 
ERSLEY  :  Connecticut ;  Origin  of  her  Constitution  and 
Laws. 

"  The  Connecticut  constitution  of  1638-9  is  the  foun- 
dation of  the  republican  institutions  of  the  colony  and 
state.  It  may  claim  on  higher  considerations  the  atten- 
tion of  students  of  political  science  and  general  history." 
— TRUMBULL,  J.  H.  :  Blue  Laws — True  and  False. 

"  The  first  properly  American  constitution,— a  work  in 
which  the  framers  were  permitted  to  give  body  and 
shape,  for  the  first  time,  to  the  genuine  republican  idea, 
that  dwelt  as  an  actuating  force  or  inmost  sense  in  all 
the  New  England  colonies.  .  .  . 

"  The  first  one  written  out  as  a  complete  frame  of 
civil  order  in  the  new  world  embodies  all  the  essential 
features  of  the  constitutions  of  our  states,  and  of  the  Re- 
public itself  as  they  exist  at  the  present  day." — BUSH- 
NELL  :  Historic  Estimate. 

"  It  was  not  the  intention  of  the  framers  of  the  consti- 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  85 

tution  to  abrogate  all  the  existing  laws  and  institutions. 
They  intended  only  to  improve  what  was  defective,  to 
supply  what  was  deficient,  and  to  render  certain  what 
was  uncertain." — ist  Connecticut  Report,  DAY'S  Preface. 

"  But  fifteen  years  before  the  '  Instrument  of  Govern- 
ment '  was  framed  in  England,  and  eighteen  years  before 
Vane's  proposition  of  a  '  fundamental  constitution,'  on 
January  14,  1639,  the  first  constitution  of  Connecticut 
was  adopted  by  a  general  assembly  of  the  planters  of  the 
three  towns  of  Hartford,  Windsor,  and  Wethersfield. 
This  was  in  fact  the  first  written  constitution,  in  the 
modern  sense  of  the  term,  known  to  history." — Old  South 
Leaflet. 

"  This  remarkable  document  gave  to  Connecticut  the 
preeminent  place  in  constitutional  history.  It  established 
a  democracy  pure  and  simple,  recognizing  neither  King, 
Lords,  or  Parliament,  nor  owning  dependence  upon  any 
power  on  earth.  It  was  the  constitution  of  an  independ- 
ent state,  a  distinct  organic  law  constituting  a  govern- 
ment and  defining  its  powers.  It  declared  in  plain 
terms  that  the  general  court  shall  constitute  the  supreme 
power  of  the  commonwealth,  and  the  general  court 
was  to  be  elected  annually  by  the  freemen." — BRINLEY'S 
Prefatory  Note,  Reprint  Laws  of  1673. 

"  Historians  concede  that  the  first  written  constitution 
of  representative  government  ordained  by  men  was 
agreed  on  by  the  inhabitants  of  the  three  towns,  Wind- 
sor, Hartford  and  Wethersfield — 250  years  ago.  .  .  . 
Never  had  a  company  of  men  deliberately  met  to  frame 
a  social  compact  constituting  a  new  and  independent 
commonwealth  with  definite  officers,  executive  and 


86  ROGER  LUDLOW 

legislative,  and  prescribed  rules  and  modes  of  govern- 
ment, until  the  first  planters  of  Connecticut  came  together 
for  the  great  work  on  January  14,  1638-9.  .  .  .  This 
daring  spring  into  political  independence  could  only  have 
proceeded  from  men  accustomed  to  some  self-created 
form  of  public  organization  .  .  ." — BALDWIN  :  Three 
Constitutions  of  Connecticut. 


CHAPTER   X. 

Who  Inspired  the  Constitution — Hooker — The  Sermon  — Wolcott's 
Notes  —  Tmmbull's  Interpretation  —  Doctrine  —  Reasons  — 
Historical  Estimates  —  Johnston  —  Fiske  — Elliott — Twichell — 
Walker — Who  Wrote  the  Constitution — Ludlow — His  Qualifi- 
cations —  Opinions  —  Hollister  —  Tuttle  —  Stiles  —  Bancroft — 
Schenck — Trumbull — Walker — Elliott  —  Hawes  —  Robinson  — 
Brinley  —  Beers  —  Waters  —  Hooker  Visioned  and  Ludlow 
Wrote  the  Fundamental  Orders. 

IN  the  absence  of  all  record  evidence,  any 
estimate  of  an  individual's  share  or  influ- 
ence in  making  the  constitution  of  1639  must 
be  one  of  conjecture  and  comparison  rather 
than  of  demonstration.  From  a  single  source, 
a  ray  of  light  shines  through  the  historic  lines, 
and  marks  one  of  the  sources  of  their  inspira- 
tion. It  falls  on  the  stalwart  figure  of  a  min- 
ister of  the  First  Church  in  Hartford,  great  in 
his  calling, — Thomas  Hooker.  He  was  a  Non- 
conformist, driven  out  of  England  by  Laud's 
pursuivants,  frozen  out  of  Massachusetts  by  the 
oligarchy  of  magistrates  and  clerical  brethren, 

87 


88  ROGER  LUDLOW 

and  made  a  democrat,  a  hater  of  tyranny  and 
absolutism,  an  opportunist  in  the  highest  sense, 
when  here  in  Connecticut  a  way  providentially 
opened  to  him  to  vision  the  rights  of  a  people 
who  would  be  truly  free ;  and  withal  great 
enough  never  in  book  or  sermon,  by  voice  or 
pen,  so  far  as  history  discloses,  to  make  claim 
to  prophecy  or  honor  above  his  fellows  or 
friends  who  dared  with  him,  in  the  face  of 
kingship  and  its  royal  grants,  to  write  the 
first  declaration  of  independence.  It  is  only 
in  the  vociferous  laudations  of  some  recent 
writers  that  the  historic  orders  are  described 
as  "  Hooker's  constitution." 

For  two  hundred  and  twenty-two  years  after 
the  constitution  was  written,  the  honors  of  its 
authorship  were  in  general  given  to  Haynes, 
Hooker,  and  Ludlow. 

Then  the  late  Dr.  J.  Hammond  Trumbull 
deciphered  and  interpreted  some  notes  of  lec- 
tures and  sermons  delivered  in  Windsor  and 
Hartford  from  April,  1638,  to  April,  1641, 
made  by  Henry  Wolcott,  Jr.,  of  Windsor,  in  a 
note  book  now  one  of  the  treasures  of  the 
Connecticut  Historical  Society.  One  of  these 
sermons  was  preached  by  Mr.  Hooker,  May 
31,  1638,  before  the  General  Court ;  and  under 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  89 

the  heads  "  Doctrine"  and  "  Reasons,"  Wol- 
cott  sets  down  in  his  manuscript,  in  a  quaint 
alphabet  and  in  arbitrary  signs,  these  proposi- 
tions from  the  lips  of  the  preacher : 

"Doctrine." — I.  That  the  choice  of  the  public  magis- 
trates belongs  unto  the  people  by  God's  own 
allowance. 

II.  The   privilege  of   election,  which  be- 
longs to  the  people,  therefore  must  not  be 
exercised    according    to   their    humors,   but 
according  to  the  blessed  will  and  law  of  God. 

III.  They  who  have  the  power  to  appoint 
officers  and  magistrates,  it  is  in  their  power, 
also,  to  set  the  bounds  and  limitations  of  the 
power  and  place  into  which  they  call  them. 

"  Reasons." — I.  Because  the  foundation  of  authority  is 
laid,  firstly,  in  the  free  consent  of  the  people. 

II.  Because,  by  a  free  choice,  the  hearts  of 
the  people  will  be  more  inclined  to  the  love 
of  the  persons  (chosen),  and  more  ready  to 
yield  (obedience). 

III.  Because  of  that  duty  and  engagement 
of  the  people. 

Upon  these  broad  "doctrines"  of  liberty, 
foretokened  in  an  earlier  letter  to  Governor 
Winthrop,  and  novel  in  that  exact  form  to  all 
the  world, — save  the  freemen  of  the  Connecti- 
cut plantation,  —  rests  the  constitution.  So 


90  ROGER  LUDLOW 

runs  the  consensus  of  opinion  between  writers 
of  colonial  history  who,  hypercritical,  accord 
too  little  honor  to  Hooker,  and  those  who, 
overzealed,  accord  too  much. 

The  truth  is  made  plain  in  the  equipoise  of 
these  scholarly  opinions : 

"It  is  on  the  banks  of  the  Connecticut,  under  the 
mighty  preaching  of  Thomas  Hooker,  and  in  the  consti- 
tution to  which  he  gave  life,  if  not  form,  that  we  draw 
the  first  breath  of  that  atmosphere  which  is  now  so  famil- 
iar to  us." — JOHNSTON  :  History  of  Connecticut. 

"  It  marked  the  beginnings  of  American  democracy, 
of  which  Thomas  Hooker  deserves  more  than  any  other 
man  to  be  called  the  father." — FISKE  :  Beginnings  of  New 
England. 

"  In  so  few  and  such  words  did  young  Mr.  Wolcott  of 
Windsor  set  down  the  substance  of  that  great  manifesto 
of  liberty,  how  little  deeming  that  his  jottings  are  the 
sole  record  by  which  more  than  two  centuries  later  it 
shall  be  redeemed  from  oblivion,  and  laurel  with  new 
and  imperishable  honor  the  memory  of  the  divine  and 
statesman  who  gave  it  voice." — TWICHELL  :  Winthrop. 

"  The  outline  of  principle  and  idea,  the  inspiration 
and  spirit  of  them,  were  Thomas  Hooker's." — WALKER  : 
First  Church  in  Hartford. 

"  The  man  who  first  visioned  and  did  much  to  make 
possible  our  American  democracy." — ELLIOTT:  History 
of  New  England. 

All  this  is  true,  historically  true ;  and  still 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  9r 

there  remains  a  question  of  great  interest  and 
importance  :  Who  wrote  the  Fundamental 
Orders,  who  framed  this  constitution  of  1639? 
What  sculptor  gave  form  and  expression  to  the 
preacher's  inspiration  ?  What  artist,  months 
after  the  "great  manifesto,"  set  in  high  lights 
and  colors  the  spirit,  the  purpose,  the  prophecy 
of  the  preacher's  words  ?  Who  embodied  them 
in  the  stately  lines  of  that  great  constitutional 
classic  ?  Who  engraved,  in  its  exact  legal 
phraseology,  so  much  more  than  the  sermonic 
"doctrines"  and  "reasons,"  the  English  Bible, 
the  genius  of  the  English  common  law,  the 
idea  of  representative  government,  and  the 
liberty  of  the  individual  ?  It  was  the  language 
of  the  court,  and  not  of  the  pulpit ;  of  the  law, 
not  of  the  gospel ;  of  the  legist,  not  of  the 
theologian  ;  of  a  jurist  and  legislator,  not  of  a 
minister  and  ecclesiast. 

The  seeds  of  Hooker's  sermon  fell  on  fruit- 
ful soil.  The  doctrines  were  driven  home  with 
persuasive  pulpit  eloquence,  and  in  the  eight 
months  that  elapsed  before  the  adoption  of  the 
constitution,  there  had  come,  through  discus- 
sion and  conviction  and  by  contrast  with 
previous  conditions,  in  England  and  in  Massa- 
chusetts, into  the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  men 


92  ROGER  LUDLOW 

of  the  three  towns,  Windsor,  Hartford,  and 
Wethersfield,  an  uplifting  to  the  highest  level 
of  political  thought  and  purpose,  and  a  readi- 
ness, an  eagerness,  to  make  a  fitting  declara- 
tion, when  in  the  fulness  of  time  some  strong 
man  of  their  own  choice  should  rise  to  give  it 
utterance. 

Who  so  likely  to  meet  their  wishes  and 
prove  equal  to  the  necessities  of  the  situation 
as  he  who  was  chief  adviser  of  their  govern- 
ment, the  centre  of  their  activities,  one  whom 
they  trusted  in  public  affairs,  their  counsellor 
from  the  beginning  in  legal  matters  ?  Ludlow 
was  chosen  for  this  distinguished  service. 
Such  is  the  evidence  from  the  most  authorita- 
tive sources.  There  were  many  reasons  for 
the  choice,  among  them  these,  sufficient,  even 
conclusive,  in  themselves : 

He  was  a  lawyer,  —  the  only  one  in  the  col- 
ony,—  trained  and  learned  in  precedents  and 
forms  ;  he  had  been  a  magistrate  in  Massachu- 
setts four  years,  serving  in  various  offices  from 
assistant  to  deputy  governor,  in  the  General 
Court ;  he  was  chief  of  the  Connecticut  com- 
mission, and  governor  de  facto  ;  he  had  drawn 
the  main  orders  and  acts  of  the  colonial  gov- 
ernment to  that  time ;  he  was  intimate  with 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  93 

Hooker  and  Haynes  and  the  other  leaders ;  and 
comparison  with  his  earlier  and  later  papers 
points  to  the  phraseology  and  diction  of  the 
constitution  as  his  own.  In  the  court  of  his- 
tory these  are  some  of  the  witnesses  in  his 
behalf : 

"  First  lawyer  who  came  to  Connecticut,  and  one  of 
the  most  gifted  who  ever  lived  in  it." — HOLLISTER  :  His- 
tory of  Connecticut. 

"  To  him  belongs  the  honor  of  first  unfolding  that  rep- 
resentative system  peculiar  to  our  government.  He 
probably  drafted  the  constitution  of  Connecticut." — 
TUTTLE  :  History  of  Windsor. 

"  This  document  was  drawn  up  by  a  member  of  the 
Windsor  Church,  Mr.  Roger  Ludlow,  assented  to  by  the 
magistrates." — STILES  :  History  of  Ancient  Windsor. 

"  The  document  bears  intrinsic  evidence  of  a  legal 
skill  and  phraseology  which,  when  compared  with  Lud- 
low's  code  of  1650,  seems  to  prove  that,  whosoever's 
advice  he  had,  no  other  hand  but  his  drew  the  first 
constitution  of  Connecticut." — SCHENCK  :  History  of 
f airfield. 

"  Unsurpassed  in  his  knowledge  of  law,  and  the  rights 
of  mankind." — BANCROFT  :  History  of  the  United  States. 

"  He  rendered  most  essential  services,  was  a  principal 
in  framing  its  original  civil  constitution.  For  jurispru- 
dence he  seems  to  have  been  second  to  none  who  came 
into  New  England  at  that  time."  —  TRUMBULL  :  History 
of  Connecticut. 


94  ROGER  LUDLOW 

"  Whose  hand  soever  may  in  detail  have  phrased  and 
formulated  the  Fundamental  Laws,  and  Haynes  and 
Ludlow  and  other  men  there  were  who  might  have  done 
it." — WALKER'S  Thomas  Hooker. 

"  Constitution  of  1639  mainly  his  work.  The  phrase- 
ology and  spirit  are  his.  The  representative  system  of 
American  republics  was  just  unfolded  by  Ludlow — who 
probably  drafted  the  constitution  of  Connecticut  —  and 
Hooker,  Haynes,  Wolcott,  Steele,  Sherman,  and  others." 
— HOLLISTER  :  History  of  Connecticut. 

"  Haynes  and  Ludlow  shaped  the  infant  state." — 
ELLIOTT  :  History  of  New  England. 

"  This  document,  recognizing  no  authority  save  God's 
superior  to  that  delegated  by  the  people,  was  drawn  up 
by  a  member  of  the  Windsor  Church,  Mr.  Roger  Lud- 
low, assisted  by  the  magistrates." — HAWES  :  Centennial 
Address. 

"  Member  constitutional  convention  of  1639.  Proba- 
ably  drafted  that  state  document." — Cyclopedia  of  Ameri- 
can Biography. 

"  Father  of  legislation,  drafted  Connecticut  constitu- 
tion, author  of  our  representative  government." — Mem. 
History  of  Hartford  County. 

"  The  first  instance  of  a  written  constitution  adopted 
by  the  suffrages  of  the  people  and  recognizing  no  allegi- 
ance to  the  king,  prelate,  or  other  earthly  power.  .  .  . 
No  lover  of  democracy,  no  believer  in  the  right  of  self- 
government  by  a  people,  can  read  it  without  a  sense  of 
worship,  nor  recall  its  authors  but  with  reverence.  .  .  . 
Its  composition  is  credited  to  Roger  Ludlow,  a  lawyer  of 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  95 

scholarship,  a  democrat  to  the  tips  of  his  fingers,  of 
whom  Roger  Wolcott  said,  '  He  was  a  man  inferior  to 
none  in  good  sense  and  skill  in  the  law.'  " — ROBINSON, 
H.  C.  :  Constitutional  History  of  Connecticut. 

"  But  the  salient  feature  of  Ludlow's  career  .  . 
was  his  large  share  in  originating  and  putting  into  prac- 
tical operation  the  original  laws  of  Connecticut.  When, 
after  the  Pequot  War,  the  General  Court  met  to  decide 
upon  a  frame  of  government,  he  was  unanimously  ap- 
pointed to  make  the  draft.  Of  this  great  paper  it  is  not 
too  much  to  say  briefly,  that  in  its  immediate  application 
and  far-reaching  results,  it  ranks  with  the  best  that  have 
been  formulated  by  the  profoundest  statesmen." — BEERS  : 
"  Roger  Ludlow,"  Mag.  American  History. 

"He  was  the  principal  framer  of  the  Constitution  of 
1639." — DAY'S  Notes. 

"  On  the  1 4th  of  January,  1638-9,  the  planters  of 
Connecticut,  assembling  at  a  public  meeting,  proceeded 
to  adopt  a  constitution,  which  was  the  first  written  con- 
stitution originating  in  the  New  World  and  the  model  for 
all  succeeding  ones.  The  authorship  of  it  was  generally 
attributed  to  Roger  Ludlow." — BRINLEY'S  Prefatory 
Note,  Laws  of  1673. 

"  Among  the  men  in  this  party  who  afterward  became 
prominent  was  Roger  Ludlow,  who  drafted  the  first  con- 
stitution of  Connecticut,  which  was  practically  the  parent 
of  all  written  constitutions,  state  and  national." —  HAY- 
DEN  :  Historical  Address. 

Until   there  shall  be  found  in  the  hidden 
records    another  key   to  the   history  of   that 


96  ROGER  LUDLOW 

colonial  epoch,  it  will  run  in  the  minds  of  men 
that,  while  Haynes  and  Wyllys,  Webster,  Ma- 
son, Goodwin,  Steele,  and  others  may  have 
shared  in  the  deliberations  of  the  planters,  and 
have  given  voice  to  their  convictions,  Hooker 
inspired  and  Ludlow  framed  the  Fundamental 
Orders, — men  of  equal  honor  in  the  profes- 
sions that  ruled  in  the  colonial  state,  the  min- 
istry, and  the  law. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

The  Code  of  1650— Ludlow's  "  Body  of  Lawes  " — Requested  to  Draft 
it  by  General  Court — The  Criminal  Code — Massachusetts  Body 
of  Liberties — Differences — Code  Four  Years  in  Preparation — 
What  it  Was — Its  Recognition  in  Legislation — Its  Intrinsic 
Merits — Witnesses  to  its  Authorship  and  Value — De  Tocque- 
ville  —  Trumbull  —  Day — Brinsley  —  Hamersley — Robinson  — 
Schenck— Stiles. 

WHATEVER  question  may  abide  as  to  the 
honor  due  to  any  man  in  the  making  of  the 
constitution  of  1639  —  and  that  Ludlow  draft- 
ed it  seems  to  be  clearly  shown  —  it  is  abun- 
dantly certified  of  record  that  he  alone  of  all 
the  eminent  men  in  Connecticut  seven  years 
later  was  called  upon  by  the  General  Court 
to  frame  a  civil  code,  which  ranks  next  to  the 
constitution  itself  in  the  jurisprudence  of  the 
state,  which  to  this  day  bears  his  name,  and 
stands,  in  form  or  substance,  in  the  present 
general  laws. 

In  determining  the  place  and  value  of  this 
code  in  history,  it  is  always  to  be  borne  in 

97 


98  ROGER  LUDLOW 

mind  that  the  constitution  vested  the  supreme 
power  of  the  State,  executive,  legislative,  and 
judicial,  in  the  General  Court,  "wch  .  .  . 
shall  have  power  to  administer  justice  accord- 
ing to  the  lawes  here  established,  and  for 
want  thereof  according  to  the  rule  of  the  word 
of  God  "  ;  and  again,  and  from  the  first,  the 
colonists  in  New  England  claimed  the  benefit 
and  protection  of  the  common  law.  In  some 
particulars,  however,  the  English  common  law 
was  not  suited  to  their  condition  and  circum- 
stances, and  those  particulars  they  omitted 
in  its  recognition  and  adoption.  They  also 
claimed  the  benefit  of  such  statutes  and  or- 
ders as  had  been  enacted  in  modification  of 
this  body  of  rules. 

At  a  session  of  the  General  Court,  held 
April  9,  1646,  when  Edward  Hopkins  was 
Governor  and  John  Haynes  was  Deputy  Gov- 
ernor, it  was  ordered  that 

"  Mr.  Ludlowe  is  requested  to  take  some  paynes  in 
drawing  forth  a  body  of  Lawes  for  the  goverment  of 
this  Comonwelth,  and  p'sent  the  same  to  the  next  Gen- 
erall  Court ;  and  if  he  can  provide  a  man  for  his  occa- 
sions while  he  is  imployed  in  the  said  searvice,  he  shall 
be  paid  at  the  country  chardge." 

Connecticut  had  already  adopted  a  criminal 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  99 

code  taken  from  that  of  Massachusetts,  with 
some  additions,  both  founded  on  the  Mosaic 
law  and  buttressed  by  scriptural  texts.  It  was 
probably  due  to  this  fact  that  some  writers 
have  ventured  to  charge  that  the  Code  of  1650 
itself  was  also  a  compilation  from  Massachu- 
setts sources  —  a  charge  which  the  simplest 
comparison  instantly  disproves. 

The  Massachusetts  Body  of  Liberties,  writ- 
ten by  Nathaniel  Ward,  was  adopted  Decem- 
ber 10,  1641,  after  amendment  and  revision  by 
all  the  lawyers  of  the  General  Court.'  Its  pro- 
visions were  chiefly  taken  from  Magna  Charta 
and  the  English  common  law.  It  contained 
ninety-eight  sections  :  the  Connecticut  code  had 
but  seventy-seven,  and  several  of  the  Connect- 
icut laws  were  enacted  prior  to  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Massachusetts  code.  To  be  more 
specific,  fourteen  of  the  articles  of  Ludlow's 
code  were  taken  from  the  Body  of  Liberties, 
some  with  slight  verbal  changes,  and  others 
with  important  additions ;  but  sixty-three  of 
the  articles  were  entirely  new  and  distinct,  and 
related  to  other  matters,  civil  and  criminal. 
Connecticut  was  provided  with  an  adequate 
code  of  civil  procedure,  the  machinery  of  civil 
government,  without  modification  in  its  primary 


ioo  ROGER  LUDLOW 

code  from  Ludlow's  hand.  Massachusetts  was 
not  so  fortunately  provided,  since  within  seven 
years  from  the  adoption  of  the  Body  of  Liber- 
ties the  General  Court  found  occasion  to  issue 
the  Book  of  General  Laws  and  Liberties,  after 
a  study  of  the  English  authorities :  Coke 
upon  Littleton,  Coke  upon  Magna  Charta, 
Cokes  Reports,  Books  of  Entries,  New  Terms 
of  the  Law,  and  Dalton's  Justice  of  the  Peace. 

The  capital  laws  both  of  Massachusetts  and 
Connecticut  were  remarkable  in  that,  while 
under  the  existing  English  law  more  than 
forty  crimes  and  offences  were*  punishable  by 
death,  under  these  more  humane  and  enlight- 
ened laws  death  waited  at  the  door  of  these 
colonial  courts  only  on  conviction  of  worship- 
ing false  gods,  witchcraft,  blasphemy,  murder, 
sodomy,  crimes  against  nature,  adultery,  rape, 
kidnapping,  perjury,  and  treason ;  Connecti- 
cut having  an  additional  provision  for  the 
punishment  of  rebellious  children.  And  the 
records  of  the  criminal  trials  of  the  time,  with 
the  testimony  elicited  by  the  magistrates,  using 
the  methods  of  a  French  judge  of  instruction, 
demonstrate  the  need  of  the  extreme  penalty 
for  the  commission  of  the  gravest  crimes. 

In  the  brief  record  of  Ludlow's  engagement 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  101 

by  the  General  Court  was  the  inditing  of  a 
great  matter.  Mark  the  scope  of  his  com- 
mission !  not  a  compilation  or  revision  of  ex- 
isting laws, — many  of  them  written  by  his  own 
hand,  at  the  General  Court's  request,  —  but 
the  "  drawing  forth  of  a  body  of  lawes  for  the 
goverment  of  this  Comonwelth,"  the  crea- 
tion of  a  code  grounded  in  precedent  and  au- 
thority, and  fitted  to  the  necessities  of  the  new 
civilization. 

Ludlow  began  at  once  this  important  work. 
With  his  other  exacting  public  duties,  four 
years  were  occupied  in  its  completion  ;  and 
the  code  was  finally  adopted  in  May,  1650, 
and  the  only  recognition  of  his  great  service 
is  certified  by  a  minute  in  the  colonial  records, 
by  Colonial  Secretary  John  Cullick,  February 
5,  1651  :  "This  court  grants  and  orders  that 
the  secretary  shall  be  allowed  and  paid  the  sum 
of  six  pounds,  being  in  prt  of  payment  for  his 
great  paines  in  drawing  out  and  transcribing 
the  country  orders,  concluded  and  established 
in  May  last"  (1650).  No  record  exists  of 
Ludlow's  compensation  for  his  great  service, 
other  than  an  entry  that  "it  is  the  mynd  of 
the  court  that  he  be  considered  for  his 
paynes." 


102  ROGER  LUDLOW 

What  the  code  was,  what  knowledge  of  the 
law  it  displayed,  what  acquaintance  with  pre- 
cedents and  forms,  with  what  foresight  and 
skill  it  provided  for  the  enforcement  of  order, 
the  protection  of  person  and  property,  the  ad- 
ministration of  justice  in  the  courts,  may  be 
truly  known  only  by  a  critical  study  of  its 
articles,  and  of  its  influence  and  authority  in 
the  legislative  and  judicial  history  of  the  State 
for  two  hundred  and  sixty  years. 

It  covers  over  fifty  printed  pages  of  the  first 
volume  of  the  Connecticut  colonial  records. 
It  was  alphabetically  arranged  under  seventy- 
seven  titles  ;  thirty-seven  being  laws  passed  at 
previous  sessions  of  the  court,  mostly  drawn 
by  Ludlow,  since  as  deputy  governor,  modera- 
tor, or  magistrate,  he  was  present  in  court 
when  twenty-one  of  these  laws  were  passed, 
and  he  was  specially  requested  to  prepare  the 
important  orders  relating  to  inquests,  intestate 
estates,  magistrates'  power  to  inflict  corporal 
punishment,  records  of  land  titles,  and  other 
fundamental  matters,  notably  the  institution 
of  jury  trials. 

Ludlow's  classification  was  in  general  re- 
tained in  all  revisions  of  the  statutes  until 
1854,  when  fifty-eight  of  his  seventy-seven  ti- 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  103 

ties,  somewhat  modified,  were  still  used ;  and 
most  of  the  articles  of  his  code,  in  form  or  sub- 
stance, are  to-day  embodied  in  the  general 
legislation  of  the  State, — a  wonderful  demon- 
stration of  the  inherent  vitality,  the  intrinsic 
merit  of  the  laws  themselves,  and  of  the 
genius,  ability,  and  learning  of  the  man  who 
was  desired  to  draw  them  forth. 

But  there  are  other  witnesses  than  the  letter 
or  spirit  of  the  law  and  its  force  in  current  leg- 
islation, to  the  character  and  value  of  this  code 
of  our  forefathers  and  the  reputation  of  its 
author.  This  is  their  cumulative  evidence  : 

"  In  the  year  1646,  Roger  Ludlow,  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished men  of  his  age,  and  entirely  conversant  with 
the  proceedings  of  the  General  Court,  was  requested  to 
compile  a  body  of  laws  for  the  colony." — Committee  on 
Revision  Conn.  Laws. 

"  A  systematic  and  comprehensive  body  of  laws,  pre- 
faced by  a  Bill  of  Rights,  in  which  are  contained  several 
of  the  leading  provisions  of  Magna  Charta." — Committee 
on  Revision  Conn.  Laws. 

"Amongst  these  documents — legislative — we  shall  no- 
tice as  especially  characteristic  the  code  of  laws  promul- 
gated by  the  little  State  of  Connecticut  in  1650  .  .  . 
a  body  of  political  laws  .  .  .  which,  though  written 
two  hundred  years  ago,  is  still  ahead  of  the  liberties  of 
our  age." —  DE  TOCQUEVILLE  :  Democracy  in  America. 


104  ROGER  LUDLOW 

"  Roger  Ludlow  was  one  of  the  most  able  of  the 
founders,  and  partly  because  he  was  an  educated  lawyer 
(perhaps  the  only  one)  has  left  an  individual  mark  on 
legislation  more  easily  traced  than  that  of  the  others. 
The  Code  of  1650  was  prepared  by  him  and  bears  his 
name.  He  was  evidently  specially  relied  on  by  the 
General  Court  in  matters  pertaining  to  law,  and  on  one 
occasion  was  by  special  order  made  moderator  of  the 
Particular  Court,  notwithstanding  the  governor  or  deputy 
governor  might  be  present." — HAMERSLEY  :  Connecticut : 
Origin  of  Constitution  and  Laws. 

"  He  appears  to  have  been  distinguished  for  his  abilities 
and  especially  his  knowledge  of  the  law,  and  the  rights 
of  mankind.  He  rendered  most  essential  services  to  this 
commonwealth  ;  was  a  principal  in  forming  its  original 
constitution,  and  the  compiler  of  its  first  code.  For 
jurisprudence  he  appears  to  have  been  second  to  none 
who  came  into  New  England  at  that  time." — TRUMBULL  : 
History  of  Connecticut. 

"  This  comprehensive  code  of  laws, —  and,  for  the 
seventeenth  century,  wonderfully  liberal  and  advanced 
in  freedom  and  wisdom, —  was  the  work  of  Roger  Lud- 
low, the  ablest  lawyer  of  the  colony  and  probably  of 
New  England." — ROBINSON,  H.  C.  :  Hist.  Address,  1889. 

"  In  the  spring  of  1650,  the  first  code  of  laws,  since 
known  as  Ludlow's  code,  was  completed  and  entered 
upon  the  public  records.  This  is  the  foundation  of  the 
written  laws  of  Connecticut." — DAY'S  Manuscript. 

"  He  was  the  first  lawyer  who  came  into  Connecticut, 
and  one  of  the  greatest  who  has  ever  lived  in  the  State. 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  105 

.  .  .  He  compiled  a  code  of  laws  which  many  years 
afterwards  was  destined  to  rank  him  among  the  leading 
statesmen  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived." — SCHENCK : 
History  of  Fair  field. 

"  This  (the  code)  is  the  foundation  of  the  written  laws 
of  Connecticut." — STILES:  History  of  Ancient  Windsor. 

"  England's  universities  had  thoroughly  trained  him  in 
the  manual  of  letters  ;  he  was  especially  well  drilled  in 
jurisprudence,  and  brought  to  the  chaotic  colonies 
clearly  defined  notions  of  legislative  polity.  ...  It 
was  moreover  by  universal  consent  called  '  Ludlowe's 
Code,'  and  by  it  the  author  gained  the  well-merited  dis- 
tinction of  '  The  Father  of  Connecticut  Jurisprudence.' " 
— BEERS  :  "  Roger  Ludlow,"  Mag.  American  History. 

"  The  Connecticut  code  was  compiled  by  Ludlow,  who 
had  one  of  the  best  legal  minds  in  New  England." — 
ELLIOTT  :  History  of  New  England. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

Framer  of  the  Constitution  and  the  Code — Other  Duties  and  Honors 
— Magistrate — Commissioner — Deputy  Governor — At  Windsor 
— Absence  from  Court — At  Pequannocke — Purchase  from  the 
Indians — Fairfield — Reprimand — Plea  of  Justification — Court's 
Sanction — Advantage  of  the  Purchase. 

ENOUGH  of  Ludlow's  honors  has  been  told 
to  place  him  in  the  foremost  rank  of  the  sturdy 
Englishmen  who  builded  the  colonial  state. 
Men  of  less  ability,  less  renown,  are  commemo- 
rated in  bronze  or  marble  likeness  of  tradition 
or  resemblance,  or  in  portraiture  or  tablet,  and 
all  pay  them  reverence  for  what  they  did  or 
said  in  those  days  ;  but  nowhere  save  in  ancient 
archives  or  records,  or  in  casual  historic  men- 
tion, is  duly  honored  the  name  of  the  man  who 
wrote  the  Constitution  and  the  Code  of  1650, 
which  in  spirit  or  in  letter  have  survived  the 
shock  of  wars  and  the  political  and  social  revo- 
lutions of  two  hundred  and  sixty  years.  All 
this  did  Roger  Ludlow  do,  and  yet  one  chap- 
ter of  his  service,  of  his  devotion  to  the  land 

1 06 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  107 

of  his  adoption,  resulting  in  misunderstand- 
ing, criticism,  and  voluntary  exile,  and  the 
loss  to  Connecticut  of  one  of  the  ablest 
men  who  ever  lived  in  it,  remains  to  be  herein 
written. 

Set  aside  for  a  closer  insight  of  Ludlow's 
career  all  that  has  been  shown  to  his  credit 
thus  far,  in  England,  Massachusetts,  and  Con- 
necticut, and  still  the  old  records  are  eloquent 
of  other  duties  done,  of  honors  won,  which 
mark  him  as  one  of  the  great  makers  of  history 
among  the  Puritan  forefathers. 

As  chief  of  the  Massachusetts  commission 
to  govern  Connecticut  for  a  year,  he  organized 
that  tribunal,  presided  at  all  its  meetings,  and 
framed  its  orders.  On  the  formation  of  the 
government,  in  May,  1637,  he  was  chosen  a 
magistrate,  and  again  in  1638.  At  the  first 
general  meeting  of  the  freemen  under  the  con- 
stitution of  1639,  he  was  elected  Deputy  Gov- 
ernor, being  the  first  to  hold  that  office.  In 
his  absence  in  1640,  he  was  elected  a  magis- 
trate,— an  office  to  which  he  was  chosen  every 
year  until  1654,  except  in  1642  and  1648,  when 
he  again  served  as  Deputy  Governor.  In  1648, 
1651,  and  1 65 3  he  was  one  of  the  commissioners 
to  the  United  Colonies,  dealing  with  the  most 


io8  ROGER  LUDLOW 

important  affairs  of  state,  notably  with  the 
claims  of  Massachusetts  to  the  territory  of 
Springfield,  of  the  Dutch  to  territory  in  Con- 
necticut, and  the  vital  questions  of  the  contro- 
versies in  the  impending  war  between  the 
Dutch  and  English.  And  he  was  one  of  the 
representatives  of  Connecticut  in  the  negotia- 
tions that  led  to  the  confederation  of  the  colo- 
nies in  1643,  and  stood  for  the  sovereignty  of 
the  people  in  framing  the  articles  of  that  com- 
pact,— a  reservation  which  saved  its  principle 
when  the  compact  was  broken  up  by  the  nulli- 
fication of  Massachusetts. 

In  addition  to  the  burdens  laid  upon  him  in 
these  executive  and  judicial  offices,  he  served 
the  state  as  commissioner  to  treat  with  Massa- 
chusetts as  to  the  Pequot  war,  and  the  occu- 
pation of  the  Pequot  lands ;  to  buy  corn 
and  beaver  of  the  Indians ;  to  treat  with  con- 
testants as  to  the  Fenwick  patent ;  to  gather 
up  remarkable  passages  of  God's  providence 
in  the  history  of  the  plantations,  for  record  ;  as 
delegate  to  the  ecclesiastical  synod  at  Boston, 
with  Hooker  and  Stone,  and  possibly  on  the 
very  occasion  when,  to  refresh  the  spirits  of 
the  disputants,  the  Massachusetts  General 
Court  passed  this  vote  :  "  The  court  think  it 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  109 

convenient  that  order  be  given  to  the  auditor 
to  send  12  gallons  of  sack  and  six  gallons  of 
white  wine  as  a  small  testimony  of  the  court's 
respect  to  the  reverend  assembly  of  elders  at 
Cambridge " ;  to  settle  land  disputes  with 
Plymouth  men  at  Windsor ;  to  answer  with 
Governor  Hopkins  a  letter  from  the  Dutch 
Governor,  Stuyvesant;  to  survey andset  bounds 
to  plantations  ;  to  hold  courts  at  Unquowa  ;  to 
serve  as  commissioner  of  military  affairs  in  the 
border  towns  ;  to  confer  with  Governor  Eaton 
and  others  about  Indian  war;  to  arrange  to 
supply  soldiers  with  provisions  in  Indian  cam- 
paign ;  to  promote  the  interests  of  Uncas 
against  Sequassen's  claims  to  sachemship  ;  to 
take  lists  of  persons  and  estates  at  Norwalk ; 
to  furnish  powder  and  supplies  to  Captain  Ma- 
son at  Saybrook ;  to  control  military  affairs  at 
Stratford  ;  to  treat  with  New  Haven  authori- 
ties as  to  ships  asked  from  Cromwell  to  aid  in 
war  against  the  Dutch  ;  to  treat  with  the  Long 
Island  Indians  and  friendly  English  there,  and 
prepare  frontier  towns  for  the  Dutch  war,  fol- 
lowing the  disclosure  to  him  of  the  conspiracy 
of  Miantonomo  to  destroy  the  whites.  Surely 
abundant  additional  proofs  are  these  of  Lud- 
low's  pre-eminence,  and  of  the  confidence 


i io  ROGER  LUDLOW 

reposed   in   him    in    important  affairs    and  in 
emergencies. 

Ludlow  made  his  home  at  Windsor,  where 
he  bought  land  of  the  Indians,  from  1635  to 
1639.  At  a  session  of  the  General  Court,  held 
September  io,  1639,  when  he  was  Deputy 
Governor,  he  was  fined  five  shillings  for  being 
absent.  Some  writers  have  suggested  as  a 
reason  for  his  absence  his  chagrin  and  disap- 
pointment at  the  election  of  his  former  political 
opponent  in  Massachusetts  —  John  Haynes  — 
as  Governor  in  that  year ;  but  he  made  no  pro- 
test then,  "grew  into  no  passion,"  and  until 
the  Governor's  death  in  1654,  and  his  own 
return  to  Ireland,  they  served  together  as 
trusted  counsellors  and  friends  in  the  great 
matters  of  state. 

Nor  was  his  absence  due  to  any  ambition  for 
lordship,  for  personal  control  or  ownership  of 
great  landed  estates,  after  the  English  fashion, 
as  his  own  moderate  acquisitions  clearly  de- 
monstrate. Nor  was  it  due,  as  some  have  sur- 
mised, to  a  desire  to  gain  an  independent  field 
for  the  display  of  his  talents  or  ambitions.  On 
the  contrary,  his  removal  from  Windsor  to 
Fairfield  in  1639,  where  he  made  his  home  and 
served  the  state  for  fifteen  years,  was  the 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  m 

result  of  his  sagacity  and  wisdom  in  securing 
favorable  and  ample  territory  for  the  increas- 
ing number  of  colonists,  and  that,  too,  before  it 
was  appropriated  by  the  Dutch  or  the  rival 
colony  of  New  Haven ;  and  it  is  simply  an- 
other fact  to  the  credit  of  this  far-seeing  man 
in  promoting  the  development  of  the  three 
original  towns. 

Early  in  1639  the  General  Court  granted  a 
commission  to  Ludlow  to  begin  a  plantation  at 
Pequannocke.  He  was  on  that  errand,  with  a 
few  others  from  Windsor,  afterwards  joined  by 
immigrants  from  Watertown  and  Concord, 
when  the  fine  was  imposed.  He  bought  a 
large  tract  of  land  from  the  Pequannocke 
sachems, — afterwards  greatly  enlarged  by  other 
purchases  to  the  westward, —  and  recalling  the 
attractive  region  beyond  (Uncoa),  which  he 
had  personally  seen  on  the  second  Pequot  ex- 
pedition, he  also  "set  down"  there,  having 
purchased  the  territory  embraced  in  the  pres- 
ent town  of  Fairfield,  to  which  he  gave  its 
name. 

On  his  return  to  Hartford,  at  a  General 
Court  session,  October  10,  1639,  he  was  taken 
to  task  for  exceeding  his  commission.  He 
made  a  tactful  and  effectual  explanation  and 


ii2  ROGER  LUDLOW 

plea   in   justification    of   his   act.     It  is  thus 
reported : 

"  Att  his  coming  downe  to  Quinnipiocke  the  hand  of 
the  Lord  was  uppon  him  in  taking  away  some  of  his  cat- 
tle, wch  prevented  him  in  some  of  his  purposes  there  for 
selling  some  of  them  :  afterwards,  att  his  coming  to  Pe- 
quannocke,  he  found  cause  to  alter  his  former  thoughts 
of  wintering  his  cattle  there,  and  understanding  that  the 
beginnings  of  a  Plantacon  beyond  that  was  not  caryed  on 
according  to  the  agreement  made  with  those  who  were 
interessed  in  ordering  the  same,  and  that  by  some  things 
wch  appeared  to  him,  his  apprehensions  were  that  some 
others  intended  to  take  up  the  sayd  place  who  had  not 
acquainted  this  Court  with  their  purposes  therein,  wch 
might  be  preiudiciall  to  this  Comonwelth,  and  knowing 
himselfe  to  be  one  of  those  to  whom  the  disposel  of  that 
Plantacon  was  comitted,  he  adventured  to  drive  his  Cat- 
tle thither,  make  provision  for  them  there,  and  to  sette 
out  himselfe  and  some  others  house  lotts  to  build  on 
there,  and  submitts  himselfe  to  the  Court  to  judge 
whether  he  hath  transgressed  the  Comission  or  not." 

A  reprimand  was  given  to  Ludlow  chiefly 
because  he  had  not  notified  the  General  Court 
of  his  intention  in  advance ;  and  Governor 
Haynes  and  Thomas  Wells  were  appointed  to 
visit  the  country  (Fairfield),  investigate  what 
Ludlow  had  done,  and  report  to  the  court. 
This  was  done  ;  and  they  reported,  that,  "  upon 
due  consideration  of  the  same,  they  had, 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  113 

thought  fit,  upon  Mr.  Ludlow's  assenting  to 
the  terms  propounded  by  them,  to  confirm  the 
same."  And  thus  a  fair  domain  was  won  for 
the  Connecticut  colony  by  peaceful  measures, 
and  held  against  the  intrigues  of  the  Dutch 
and  the  rival  claims  of  New  Haven,  —  a  posi- 
tion of  great  strategic  advantage  and  strength 
to  the  parent  government  in  the  later  con- 
troversies of  territorial  ownership  and  occupa- 
tion. Here  again  was  he  the  man  who  held 
the  post  of  honor,  as  he  did  in  the  palisado  at 
Windsor  in  the  stress  of  the  Pequot  war  in 
1637. 

3 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

Dutch  Claims  in  Connecticut — Confederation — Johnston's  Opinion 
— Contention  1635-1664 — Indian  Allies — Diplomacy — Commis- 
sioners' Charges — Stuyvesant's  Denial — Refusal  of  Massachu- 
setts—  Nullification — Historical  Incidents — Rhode  Island — 
Underhill — Petition  to  Cromwell — Ships  and  Troops — Peace 
Declaration. 

THE  Dutch  claimed  the  territory  of  Con- 
necticut through  the  primal  rights  of  discov- 
ery, of  conquest  or  purchase,  and  occupation, 
— rights  that  underlie  all  civilization,  by  the 
strong  hand ; — and  this  fact  is  to  be  considered, 
howsoever  one  may  criticise  their  blunt  di- 
plomacy, their  disingenuousness,  or  their  stub- 
bornness in  the  support  of  their  demands.  They 
were  adventurers  for  trade,  and  were  ready  to 
negotiate  or  manoeuvre,  bluster,  or  threaten, 
or  fight  for  its  advantages  by  the  same  methods 
which  brought  them  profit  along  the  Hudson 
and  Mohawk,  including  the  hazardous  ex- 
change of  muskets  and  ammunition  and  rum 
with  the  Indians  for  beaver  and  other  furs, 

114 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  115 

with  shrewd  and  cunning  appeals  on  occasion 
to  their  passions  of  cupidity  and  revenge. 

What,  in  brief,  are  the  facts  as  to  the  warfare 
along  the  western  border  in  those  crucial  days  ? 
What  were  its  causes,  its  incidents,  its  results  ? 
Who  stood  fast  against  Dutch  intrigue  and 
Indian  craftiness,  in  the  interests  of  the  colon- 
ists, and  finally  sacrificed  himself  that  his  heri- 
tage— their  heritage — should  endure  ? 

The  confederation  of  the  colonies  in  1643, — 
Connecticut,  Massachusetts  (with  a  greater 
population  than  the  other  colonies  together), 
New  Haven,  and  Plymouth, — was  in  chief  due 
to  a  fear  of  the  Dutch  and  the  Indians :  al- 
though Johnston,  in  his  History  of  Connecti- 
cut, attributes  it  to  a  single  cause  : 

"  The  leading  reason  for  the  formation  of 
the  union  was  probably  the  inability  of  the 
home  government,  during  the  confusion  of 
the  civil  war,  to  afford  protection  to  the  New 
Englanders  against  the  claims  of  the  Dutch 
colony  of  New  Netherlands." 

That  the  motives  of  the  league  were  com- 
posite is  shown  in  the  preamble  to  its  articles : 

" .  .  .  whereas  we  live  encompassed  with  people 
of  severall  Nations  and  strange  languages  which  here- 
after may  prove  injurious  to  us  and  our  posterity "  ; 


ii6  ROGER  LUDLOW 

"  and  forasmuch  as  the  Natives  have  formerly  com- 
mitted sundry  insolencies  and  outrages  upon  severall 
.Plantations  of  the  English,  and  have  of  late  combined 
themselves  against  us." 

From  the  first  clash  between  the  English 
and  Dutch  on  the  Connecticut,  in  1635,  to  the 
surrender  of  New  Amsterdam  to  the  English 
fleet  in  1664,  through  the  directorships  of 
Minuit,  van  Twiler,  Kieft,  and  Stuyvesant, 
there  ran  the  red  current  of  bitter  racial  con- 
troversy, chicanery,  plot  and  counterplot,  con- 
spiracy, and  savage  warfare.  Across  some 
imaginary  territorial  line  the  tides  of  battle 
came  and  went,  bearing  with  them  the  ghastly 
wreckage  of  arson,  massacre,  and  pillage. 

That  the  Dutch  were  ready  at  all  times, 
and  especially  when  the  controversy  ripened 
to  the  actual  declaration  of  war,  to  call  to  their 
aid  the  tribes  of  savages,  admits  of  no  ques- 
tion. Witness  the  instructions  of  the  United 
Provinces  to  their  director-general,  Stuyvesant, 
in  the  war  year  that  saw  the  naval  battles  of 
Blake  and  Von  Tromp,  in  1652  : 

"  If  it  happen,  which  we  will  not  yet  sup- 
pose, that  those  New  Englanders  did  incline  to 
take  a  part  in  these  broils,  and  injure  our  good 
inhabitants,  then  we  should  advise  your  honor 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  117 

to  engage  the  Indians  in  your  cause,  who,  we 
are  informed,  are  not  partial  to  the  English." 

Every  reason,  then,  had  the  men  of  the 
united  colonies,  and  especially  the  settlers  in 
the  frontier  towns,  where  the  first  onset  would 
be  made,  to  believe  the  statement  of  Uncas  to 
Governor  Haynes,  that  the  Dutch  governor 
was  inciting  the  Narragansetts  to  cut  off  the 
English  ;  confirmed,  as  it  was,  by  the  disclos- 
ures of  other  friendly  sachems  at  Stratford, 
and  to  Ludlow  in  person  at  Fairfield  in  March, 

1653- 

The  commissioners  of  the  united  colonies 
met  at  Boston  in  April,  1653,  to  consider  the 
situation.  Then  began  the  long  series  of  in- 
quiries, of  commissions,  of  diplomatic  denials 
and  defiances  which  read  in  the  light  of  truth 
make  one  of  the  interesting  chapters  in  our 
colonial  history. 

The  New  Englanders  made  up  their  minds 
to  provide  for  emergencies,  and  negotiate 
afterwards ;  and  so  they  voted  that  five  hundred 
men  should  take  the  field  "if  God  called  the 
colonies  to  make  war  against  the  Dutch." 
They  had  no  more  doubt  about  their  relations 
to  Providence  and  the  righteousness  of  their 
cause  than  Ethan  Allen  had  in  the  Bennington 


ii8  ROGER  LUDLOW 

meeting-house,  when  the  minister  in  a  prayer 
of  great  detail  was  giving  thanks  to  the  Al- 
mighty for  the  capture  of  -Ticonderoga,  and 
Allen  stood  up  in  the  congregation  and  ex- 
claimed, "  Please  mention  to  the  Lord  about 
my  being  there "  ;  and  so  were  they  doubly 
armed  to  take  up  the  controversies  with  the 
doughty  Dutch  director-general. 

At  first  the  commissioners  charged  the  In- 
dian sachems  with  the  conspiracy  ;  they  denied 
it ;  and  the  commissioners  drew  up  a  long 
manifesto  of  grievances  and  complaints,  and 
appointed  delegates  to  visit  Manhattan  and 
demand  satisfaction.  Stuyvesant  received  the 
visitors  courteously,  denied  any  share  in  the 
plot  to  kill  the  English,  and  the  charges  in 
detail,  solemnly  avowing :  "  This  only  we 
know,  that  what  your  worships  lay  unto  our 
charge  are  false  reports  and  forged  informa- 
tion." The  delegates  refused  all  terms  of  com- 
promise, charged  Stuyvesant  with  evasion  and 
duplicity,  and  left  "  the  enemy's  country"  in  the 
night.  Arbitration,  even  with  Englishmen 
chosen  to  represent  the  Dutch  interests,  came 
to  naught ;  the  delegates  divided  on  their  re- 
port ;  a  conference  proved  futile,  as  did  the 
director-general's  visit  at  Hartford ;  and  the 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  119 

colonists  made  ready  for  that  providential  call 
to  arms. 

From  the  outset  Massachusetts  had  de- 
murred to  the  action  of  the  colonial  commis- 
sioners, through  her  representatives  in  that 
tribunal,  on  the  ground  that  at  present  she 
could  see  no  occasion  for  war ;  that  the  Dutch 
had  made  a  suitable  explanation,  and  she 
then  refused  to  join  in  the  campaign,  and  so 
wrote  across  the  articles  of  confederation  her 
decree  of  nullification.  And  from  that  day 
until  the  dissolution  of  the  confederation  in 
1684,  each  colony  developed  on  independent 
lines. 

The  salient  features  in  the  history  of  that 
time  are  these  :  In  July,  1653,  New  Haven  and 
Connecticut,  pursuant  to  the  majority  vote  of 
the  colonial  commissioners,  called  on  Massa- 
chusetts for  her  quota  of  the  five  hundred  men, 
or  to  allow  the  recruiting  of  from  two  to  four 
hundred  men  from  that  colony.  Governor 
Endicott  declined  to  honor  the  call.  New 
Haven  and  Connecticut  then  sent  agents  to 
England  to  petition  Cromwell  to  send  over 
some  troops  and  ships  to  aid  them  in  fighting 
the  Dutch,  and  to  command  Massachusetts  to 
assist  in  the  war. 


120 


Rhode  Island  took  a  hand  in  the  imbroglio, 
and  fitted  out  a  marauding  expedition  under 
the  command  of  the  soldier-adventurer,  John 
Underhill,  whom  Lowell  describes  as  "a  kind 
of  cross  between  Dugald  Dalgetty  and  Ancient 
Pistol,"  who  took  the  defenceless  House  of 
Good  Hope  at  Hartford,  nailed  his  flamboy- 
ant proclamation  on  its  doors,  and  "  Sold  it 
first  to  Ralph  Earle  of  Rhode  Island  for  ^20, 
and  again  to  Gibbons  and  Lord,"  giving  a 
deed  to  both  parties ;  and  the  General  Court 
passed  a  formal  act  of  sequestration  of  this 
Dutch  possession,  in  April,  1654. 

The  colonial  committee  found  public  senti- 
ment in  England  bitter  against  the  Dutch  in 
New  Netherland ;  and  Cromwell,  on  their 
petition,  sent  four  ships,  the  Raven,  the 
Church,  the  Argentine,  and  the  Hope,  with  a 
few  troops,  to  aid  the  colonists  in  reducing 
Manhattan  and  all  other  Dutch  places ;  and 
June  i,  1654,  the  fleet  was  at  anchor  at  Bos- 
ton, to  be  equipped  for  the  expedition ;  and 
June  2 3d  it  was  victualled  for  about  900  foot 
and  one  troop  of  horse, —  300  recruiting  from 
Massachusetts,  under  permission  from  the  Gen- 
eral Court  to  enlist  volunteers,  200  from  Con- 
necticut, 133  from  New  Haven,  and  200  from 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  121 

the  fleet, — and  was  on  the  eve  of  sailing,  when 
the  news  of  the  peace  between  England  and 
Holland  was  received.  The  English  on  Long 
Island  were  ready  to  join  in  the  onset ;  the 
English  at  Manhattan  were  active  in  their 
efforts  to  aid  their  brethern ;  and  the  Dutch 
themselves  were  alienated  by  the  oppression 
and  misrule  of  Stuyvesant  and  his  predeces- 
sors, and  would  not  fight  under  his  orders. 
Naturally  there  was  a  day  of  thanksgiving  at 
New  Amsterdam  when  the  welcome  tidings  of 
peace  came. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

Virginia  Massacre — Delaware  Colonists — Mohawks — French  in  Can- 
ada— Six  Nations — French  Embassy  to  New  England — Treach- 
ery and  Intrigue — Rivalry  of  Indian  Sachems — Threats,  Plots, 
and  Murders — Apprehension  in  Border  Towns — Alarm  of  the 
Colonists — War  Preparations — Rebellion  at  Stamford — Con- 
necticut and  New  Haven  Refuse  Assistance — Fairfield  Raises 
Troops — Ludlow  Chosen  Commander — Reasons  for  his  Action 
— Notice  to  Authorities — Their  Disapproval. 

THE  suspicions  of  the  English,  and  their  be- 
lief in  the  Dutch  and  Indian  conspiracy,  were 
intensified  by  the  memories  of  the  massacre  of 
the  Virginia  colonists  by  old  Opecancanough 
and  his  warriors  a  few  years  before — memories 
kept  alive  by  the  stories  of  the  "  divers  godly 
disposed  persons "  who  then  removed  into 
New  England  and  settled  in  the  Connecticut 
border  towns.  And  the  Dutch  had  arrested 
and  imprisoned  and  driven  out  the  colonists 
who  had  attempted  to  settle  at  the  Delaware, 
to  the  great  chagrin  and  loss  of  the  capitalists 
who  had  adventured  there. 

To  the  westward  between  the  lakes  and  the 

122 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  123 

Hudson,  and  to  the  border  where  the  dreaded 
Mohawks  made  their  forays  and  exacted  trib- 
ute from  the  tribes  they  had  subdued,  there 
was  a  field  of  conflict, —  war  to-day  and  truce 
to-morrow,  as  red  men  and  white  struggled  for 
the  mastery. 

To  the  northward,  men  of  another  race  and 
religion  had  battled  for  gain  and  conquest, — 
devotees  of  mistaken  modes  of  colonization. 
Champlain,  Montmagny,  Maisonneuve,  gover- 
nors, commandants,  and  superiors,  had  spent 
weary  years  of  warfare  with  the  native  tribes. 
They  were  led  and  inspired  by  the  courage 
and  heroism  of  the  Jesuits,  who  carried  the 
message  of  the  Master  alike  to  Huron  and  Ir- 
oquois.  Le  Jeune,  Brebeuf,  Chabanel,  Jonges, 
Noue,  Bressani,  were  not  dismayed  by  torture 
or  starvation,  by  the  horrors  of  cannibalism, 
or  the  maniac  deviltries  of  the  Ononhara  or 
Dream  Feast.  Men  at  arms,  men  of  affairs, 
men  and  women  reared  in  the  atmosphere  of 
courts  and  bred  to  their  luxuries,  had  laid 
down  their  lives  to  hold  the  vast  domain  of 
the  north  for  the  honor  of  France.  Strange 
tales  of  the  devotion  and  sacrifice  of  these 
Jesuit  fathers,  of  the  sufferings  of  gentle  men 
and  women,  of  stratagem,  of  ambuscade,  of 


124  ROGER  LUDLOW 

horrid  rites,  of  massacre,  were  told  in  the  colo- 
nial homes  of  New  England,  all  intensifying 
the  unrest  and  alarm  that  waited  on  every  ru- 
mor from  the  lips  of  voyageur,  scout,  trapper, 
or  Indian  runner. 

The  warriors  of  the  Six  Nations  had  driven 
the  French  into  the  towns  and  outposts,  and 
spread  desolation  and  terror  in  the  valley  of 
the  St.  Lawrence  and  along  the  lakes ;  and  in 
such  dire  distress  were  these  "  pioneers  of 
France  in  the  new  world,"  that  they  sent  the 
accomplished  Druillets  and  Godfrey  to  pray 
aid  of  the  heretic  New  Englanders  in  their  be- 
half, and  that  of  the  Christianized  Indians  of 
Acadia,  against  the  Mohawks  and  warriors  of 
the  Six  Nations.  Their  plea  was  adroit  and 
ingenious  ;  and  the  colonial  commissioners,  not 
to  be  outdone  in  diplomatic  courtesy,  assured 
the  Frenchmen  of  their  readiness  to  do  all  of- 
fices of  righteousness,  peace,  and  good  neigh- 
borhood ;  but  they  must  await  a  more  favorable 
time  for  negotiations.  It  was  an  occasion  for 
diplomacy,  and  few  state  papers  of  that  day 
are  of  greater  diplomatic  interest  than  the  final 
answer  of  the  commissioners  to  the  represen- 
tatives from  Governor  D'Aillebout  of  Canada, 
who  had  labored  for  years,  by  correspondence 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  125 

and  otherwise,  to  bring  about  an  alliance  with 
New  England.  But  Frenchman  and  Puritan 
could  not  make  treaties  in  the  presence  of  the 
general  sentiment  expressed  in  the  Massachu- 
setts statute  :  "  No  Jesuit  or  ecclesiastical  per- 
son ordained  by  the  authority  of  the  Pope  shall 
henceforth  come  within  our  jurisdiction." 

Dutch  hatred,  Indian  treachery,  French  in- 
trigue, kindled  their  bale-fires  around  the  co- 
lonial horizon,  and  through  their  darkling 
clouds  were  seen  grim  portents  of  savage  war- 
fare to  appall  the  stoutest  hearts  in  the  ham- 
lets and  solitary  homes  in  the  wilderness  ;  and 
these  fears  were  intensified  in  the  tribal  and 
racial  rivalries  and  hostilities  of  the  natives 
within  the  borders, —  not  so  much  of  the  tribes 
conquered  by  the  Mohawks,  and  of  whom 
Ludlow  and  his  friends  purchased  lands  at 
Fairfield  and  vicinity,  as  primarily  in  the  am- 
bition of  Miantonomo  and  Uncas,  the  claims 
to  sovereignty  of  Narragansett  and  Mohegan, 
the  machinations  of  Ninigret,  and  the  enmity 
of  the  Pequot  remnant  toward  all  their  con- 
querors. To  Miantonomo's  death,  in  1643, 
the  war  councils  were  aflame ;  and  only  the 
strong  hand  of  English  power  held  the  bal- 
ance of  safety,  amid  conspiracies  and  alliances 


ia6  ROGER  LUDLOW 

that  were  a  constant  menace  to  the  peace  of 
all  New  England. 

After  the  death  of  the  Narragansett  chief, 
the  serious  Indian  troubles  were  centred  in 
the  towns  in  the  southwestern  part  of  the 
State,  settled  by  Ludlow  and  the  pioneers  who 
followed  him  from  Windsor,  Concord,  and 
other  places. 

What  were  the  special  causes  of  apprehen- 
sion, apart  from  the  general  ones  already 
noted  ?  They  are  written  here  and  there  in 
the  annals  of  conspiracies  and  atrocities,  and 
clearly  tell  why  all  the  fighting  men  flew  to 
arms,  and,  impatient  of  the  slow  deliberation 
of  their  distant  inland  neighbors,  chose  a  com- 
mander of  their  own  in  the  presence  of  great- 
est perils. 

In  the  summer  and  fall  of  1643,  the  In- 
dians killed  over  forty  of  the  Dutch  ;  mur- 
dered Anne  Hutchinson,  of  Antinomian  fame, 
and  her  family,  eighteen  persons  in  all,  at 
Stratford ;  and  drove  in  the  settlers  west  of 
Stamford.  Strict  watch  was  kept  in  every 
plantation,  and  every  man  capable  of  bearing 
arms  in  western  Connecticut  was  obliged,  on 
the  Lord's  Day,  to  go  armed  to  the  places  of 
worship. 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  127 

In  the  spring  of  1644,  the  Indians  killed  a 
man  between  Fairfield  and  Stamford.  They 
promised  to  deliver  the  murderer  to  Ludlow 
at  Fairfield,  but  let  him  go  in  sight  of  the 
town.  The  English,  in  retaliation,  seized  and 
put  in  prison  some  sachems  and  other  natives. 
The  Indians  arose  en  masse  and  terrified  Fair- 
field  and  Stamford ;  and  the  prisoners  were 
released.  A  month  later  an  Indian  assaulted, 
with  a  hammer,  a  woman  in  the  town  street  of 
Stamford,  making  her  insane,  and  robbed  the 
house.  Natives  of  the  home  tribes  went  on 
the  war-path,  fired  guns  around  the  planta- 
tions, and  neglected  their  corn-planting.  No 
travel  by  land  was  safe ;  close  watch  and 
strong  guard  were  kept  night  and  day.  And 
the  border  towns  appealed  to  Connecticut  and 
New  Haven  for  aid  in  their  distress. 

Trade  with  the  Indians  in  guns  and  swords 
and  any  warlike  instruments  was  forbidden, 
under  a  fine  of  the  value  of  the  article  sold. 
Sales  to  the  French  and  Dutch  were  also 
prohibited. 

In  1646,  a  plot  to  kill  several  of  the  princi- 
pal people  of  Hartford  was  unmasked.  Se- 
quassen  hired  Watolisbrough  to  assassinate 
Hopkins,  Haynes,  and  Whiting.  He  confessed 


128  ROGER  LUDLOW 

the  scheme  at  Hartford.  The  commissioners 
demanded  the  surrender  of  Sequassen  and 
other  conspirators.  The  Indians  defied  them, 
primed  and  cocked  their  pieces,  and  derided 
the  officers  and  troops  sent  to  arrest  the 
leaders.  They  burned  the  tar  and  turpentine 
stored  at  Windsor,  and  set  all  the  country 
about  Milford  on  fire,  to  destroy  the  town. 

The  Narragansetts  and  Nehanticks  violated 
their  agreement  with  the  whites,  and  besought 
the  Mohawks  to  attack  them. 

Ninigret  (their  chief)  said  he  would  pile  the 
English  cattle  in  heaps,  and  kill  every  Eng- 
lishman who  should  step  out  at  his  door,  and 
these  tribes  were  more  insolent  in  western  Con- 
necticut than  ever,  in  1648.  They  invited  the 
Pocomtucks  and  Mohawks  to  join  them  in  a 
war  against  Uncas  and  the  Mohegans.  United 
they  could  put  eight  hundred  warriors  in  the 
field ;  and  they  threatened  to  march  through 
the  colony  on  the  war-path. 

In  the  same  year,  John  Whitmore,  repre- 
sentative of  Stamford  in  the  General  Court, 
was  slain  while  driving  his  cattle  home  from 
the  fields.  Connecticut  and  New  Haven  at 
last  declared  war  against  the  Indians  at  Stam- 
ford and  vicinity,  on  account  of  the  Whitmore 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  129 

murder  and  other  outrages.  They  became 
alarmed,  and  ceased  their  depredations  for  a 
time. 

In  1653,  after  this  series  of  outbreaks,  the 
colonists  had  no  doubt  of  the  Dutch  and  In- 
dian conspiracy  against  them,  and  prepared 
for  war.  A  general  anxiety  prevailed,  and 
special  precautions  were  taken  against  an  at- 
tack, which  they  had  learned  from  friendly 
Indians  was  fixed  for  the  day  of  public  elec- 
tions, when  the  freemen  would  be  from  home. 
Ploughing,  sowing,  and  planting  were  delayed, 
and  the  settlers  were  exhausted  by  constant 
watching,  and  put  to  great  outlays  for  the 
public  safety. 

The  fear  was  greatest  in  the  frontier  towns. 
Men  were  sent  to  Stamford  to  aid  in  its  de- 
fence. A  frigate  patrolled  the  Sound,  to 
defend  the  coast  against  the  Dutch  and  incur- 
sions from  Long  Island  by  Ninigret  and  his 
warriors.  The  settlers  at  Stamford  rebelled 
against  the  slow  prosecution  of  the  war,  set  up 
for  the  home  government  against  the  colonies, 
raised  troops,  and  asked  permission  to  recruit  in 
other  towns.  Goodyear  and  Newman,  from 
New  Haven,  tried  to  quiet  them  by  reading 
an  order  of  a  committee  of  Parliament  directing 


130  ROGER  LUDLOW 

them  to  obey  the  colonial  authorities.  They 
insisted  that  New  Haven  should  pay  a  part  of 
their  expenses  in  fortifications,  and  provide 
a  guard  there  during  the  winter.  Some  arrests 
were  made  for  attempting  an  insurrection. 

Fairfield  took  more  deliberate  action,  and 
resolved  to  prosecute  the  war  despite  the  pro- 
voking delays  of  the  authorities  at  Connecticut 
and  New  Haven.  The  people  there  came  near 
to  revolution  in  their  alarm  and  impatience  in 
raising  volunteers  and  arming  for  an  expedi- 
tion against  the  Dutch  and  defence  against 
the  Indians.  They  appointed  Roger  Ludlow 
commander-in-chief  of  their  forces.  In  what 
he  conceived  to  be  his  duty,  and  in  his  dis- 
pleasure that  the  colonies  did  not  follow  the 
declaration  of  their  own  commissioners  in 
the  presence  of  the  impending  dangers,  he 
accepted  this  command  without  the  official 
sanction  or  commission  of  the  authorities,  but 
honestly  and  honorably  to  meet  a  responsi- 
bility imposed  by  his  neighbors  and  friends, 
and  not  without  hope  and  assurance  that,  as 
he  was  once  charged  with  the  supervision  of 
military  affairs  on  the  border  by  the  General 
Court,  the  end  would  justify  the  means. 

He  had  good  reasons   for   his   confidence. 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  131 

He  was  then  a  colonial  commissioner.  He 
had  been  charged  with  the  oversight  of  mili- 
tary affairs  at  Fairfield  and  vicinity.  He  was 
at  Boston,  at  an  extra  commissioners'  session, 
March  17  and  April  19,  1653,  and  urged  that 
men  and  arms  should  be  sent  to  protect  Fair- 
field  and  the  adjacent  towns  on  the  Sound. 
He  and  Captain  John  Cullick,  as  commis- 
sioners, were  "  invested  with  full  power  to  agi- 
tate such  occasions  as  concern  the  United 
colonies,  for  Connecticut,  according  to  their 
former  commission."  Ludlow  was  also  of  the 
special  committee  to  persuade  Massachusetts 
to  join  in  the  expedition  against  the  Dutch. 
When  she  refused,  the  commissioners  sent 
warning  to  each  colony  to  prepare  for  war. 
He  also  acted  with  Governor  Haynes,  as  a 
committee,  in  arranging  for  the  campaign  with 
Governor  Eaton  of  New  Haven. 

The  matter  culminated  thus  :  Thomas  Bax- 
ter, a  freebooter  from  Rhode  Island,  with  a 
commission  from  that  colony,  "  under  the 
Commonwealth  of  England,"  seized  a  Dutch 
vessel,  and  brought  her  into  Black  Rock  har- 
bor, at  Fairfield.  The  Dutch  sent  to  Con- 
necticut two  men-of-war,  with  one  hundred 
men,  which  lay  in  the  roadstead,  off  Fairfield. 


1 32  ROGER  LUDLOW 

There  was  great  excitement  and  alarm.  At 
a  town  meeting  it  was  voted  to  raise  troops 
for  defence  and  to  make  war  on  the  Dutch. 
Then  Ludlow  was  made  commander  and  ac- 
cepted, as  the  town  might  be  attacked  at  any 
moment,  and  began  to  drill  his  men  and  pre- 
pare for  the  attack.  He  immediately  wrote 
Governor  Eaton  of  his  appointment  and  ac- 
tion ;  and  his  letter  was  read  to  the  General 
Court  at  New  Haven,  November  22,  1653. 
But  the  magistrates  at  New  Haven,  hitherto 
foremost  in  their  advocacy  of  war  against  the 
Dutch,  and  who  had  charged  Massachusetts 
with  a  violation  of  the  Confederation  articles 
because  of  its  refusal  to  join  in  this  war,  made 
only  this  answer  to  Ludlow's  notice  and  the 
appeal  of  their  neighbors  in  their  distress. 
The  Governor  (Eaton)  acquainted  the  Court 
with  a  letter  he  had  received 

"  from  Mr  Ludlow,  informing  of  a  meeting  they  have 
had  at  Fairfield  at  wch  they  have  concluded  to  goe 
against  the  Duch,  and  have  chosen  him  for  their  chiefe, 
and  he  hath  accepted  it  ;  all  wch  wrightings  were  read  to 
the  court,  after  wch  the  court  considered  whether  they 
were  called  at  this  time  to  send  forth  men  against  the 
Duch,  and  after  much  debate  and  consultation 
the  court  by  vote  declared  that  .  .  .  they  see  not 
themselves  called  to  vote  for  a  present  warn" 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  133 

In  the  presence  of  the  declaration  of  war  by 
the  council  of  which  he  had  been  a  member ; 
of  the  order  of  Parliament  that  the  Dutch 
should  be  treated  as  the  declared  enemies  of 
the  Commonwealth  of  England;  of  the  gen- 
eral belief  that  the  subjugation  of  the  New 
Netherlands  was  the  only  way  to  lasting  safety 
and  peace,  who  will  now  question  that  Roger 
Ludlow  undertook  the  performance  of  a  plain 
duty,  and  was  justified  in  his  action  ?  New 
Haven  disliked  Ludlow,  and  the  criticism  and 
indifference  expressed  in  its  treatment  of  his 
letter  were  due  to  his  taking  up  and  settle- 
ment of  Fairfield — which  geographically  be- 
longed to  that  colony — as  one  of  the  towns 
of  its  rival,  Connecticut ;  to  his  liberal  views 
in  civil  and  religious  matters,  as  set  forth  in 
the  Fundamental  Orders  and  the  Code ;  to 
its  fear  that  he  might  found  another  colony 
for  democratic  government  in  the  adjacent 
territory  when  wrested  from  the  Dutch  ;  and 
to  the  vigorous  protests  he  had  made  from 
time  to  time,  and  his  home  thrusts  at  men  and 
their  measures,  in  the  hot  debates  between 
the  leaders  and  makers  of  public  opinion  in 
the  rival  colonies. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

Witchcraft — Ancestors'  Convictions — English  Law — Persecution — 
King  James — More — Fuller — Granvil — Massachusetts — Mather 
— Witchcraft  Laws — Capital  Crime — Goodman — Knapp — Bas- 
sett — Accusation  of  Ludlow — Staples  v.  Ludlow — The  Charges 
— The  Defence  —  Fines — Subsequent  Indictment  of  Plaintiff's 
Wife  for  Familiarity  with  Satan. 

THE  forefathers  believed  in  witchcraft, —  en- 
tering into  compacts  with  devils.  They  set  it 
down  in  their  criminal  codes  as  a  capital 
offence.  They  found  abundant  authority  in 
the  English  law  and  precedents.  The  statutes 
of  Henry  VIII.  and  James  I.  made  Conjura- 
tions, Enchantment,  and  Witchcraft  punisha- 
ble by  death ;  and  they  were  not  repealed 
until  1 736.  Many  fell  victims  to  the  merciless 
execution  of  these  laws,  the  persecution  being 
kept  aflame  by  such  theological  insanities  as 
King  James's  Doctrine  of  Devils,  More's  Anti- 
dote to  Atheism,  Fuller's  Holy  and  Profane 
State,  and  Granvil's  Sadducismus  Triumphatus. 
Fortunately  the  mania  did  not  take  firm  hold 

134 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  135 

in  the  colonies  until  about  1650,  and  then  only 
in  sporadic  cases,  when  "the  Devil  starteth 
himself  up  in  the  pulpit,  like  a  meikle  black 
man,  and  calling  the  row  [roll],  every  one  an- 
swered, '  Here.' '  Massachusetts  had  a  unique 
record  of  convictions  and  punishments.  Men, 
women,  and  children  of  tender  years  were  done 
to  death  on  Gallows  Hill,  terrified  into  confes- 
sion, but  protesting  their  innocence  with  un- 
shaken constancy.  Cotton  Mather  fed  the 
fires  with  his  malevolent  delusions,  writing  in 
his  ministerial  inebriety  of  "prodigious  pro- 
cessions of  devils,"  in  the  time  of  Governor 
Phips.  It  was  he  who  calmly  looked  on  when 
Burroughs  was  hung,  salved  the  conscience  he 
had  by  composing  such  twaddle  as  the  "  Late 
Memorable  Providences  Relating  to  Witch- 
crafts and  Possessions,"  and  still  with  unwit- 
ting irony  confessing  to  himself,  in  his  diary, 
that  he  "  had  temptations  to  atheism,  and  to  the 
abandonment  of  all  religion  as  a  mere  delusion." 

The  General  Court  of  Connecticut  estab- 
lished this  capital  law : 

"  2.  If  any  man  or  woman  be  a  witch  (that 
is,  hath  or  consulteth  with  a  familiar  spirit), 
they  shall  be  put  to  death.  Ex.  22  : 18,  Lev. 
20  :  27,  Deut.  18  : 10,  n." 


136  ROGER  LUDLOW 

And  New  Haven  colony,  in  fewer  words, 
but  on  the  same  Scriptural  authority,  provided 
in  its  capital  laws  : 

"If  any  person  be  a  witch,  he  or  she  shall 
be  put  to  death  according  to  Ex.  22  : 18,  Lev. 
20  :  27,  Deut.  18  : 10,  1 1." 

While  the  witchcraft  fever  raged  in  Massa- 
chusetts, the  colonists  of  New  Haven  and 
Connecticut  were  vigilant  to  suppress  any 
outbreak  in  their  own  jurisdiction,  by  heroic 
remedies ;  and  the  disease  seemed  quite  as 
virulent  on  the  magisterial  bench  as  in  the 
humble  homes  of  the  few  victims  of  its  un- 
righteous judgments. 

Mistress  Goodman  was  first  suspected  and 
accused  at  New  Haven,  in  August,  1653  ;  was 
cautioned  that  "  the  court  wisheth  her  to  looke 
to  her  carriage  hereafter  .  .  .  keepe  her 
place,  and  medle  with  her  owne  business " ; 
was  later  imprisoned,  and  finally  released  on 
giving  security  for  her  good  behavior.  Accu- 
sations and  indictments  appear  in  the  records 
for  many  years,  with  water  ordeals,  and  various 
tests  of  innocence,  with  death  sentences  in  one 
or  two  cases,  afterward  commuted ;  but  the 
executions  of  Goodwife  Knapp  at  Fairfield, 
and  Goodwife  Bassett  at  Stratford,  gave  pause 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  137 

to  magistrates  in  imposing  the  death  penalty, 
and  last  of  all  reached  the  clergy,  and  tem- 
pered or  silenced  their  denunciations  of  this 
crime,  born  of  delusion  and  nurtured  by  bigotry 
run  rampant. 

Enough  has  been  written  here  of  this  story 
of  dishonor  to  demonstrate  that  an  accusation 
of  witchcraft  was  a  serious  matter.  It  was  an 
easy  thing  to  make,  and  unfortunately  easy  to 
prove  upon  evidence,  hearsay  and  circumstan- 
tial, which  no  court  would  hear  for  a  moment 
under  the  modern  rules  of  the  admission  of  ev- 
idence. As  it  was  easy  to  bring  such  a  grave 
accusation  through  malice,  carelessness,  or  love 
of  gossip,  so  was  it  much  easier  to  charge  one 
with  having  made  such  an  accusation  out  of 
spite  or  revenge  or  other  form  of  deviltry,  and 
make  him  liable  in  a  civil  suit  for  slander,  for 
oral  defamation  of  character.  If  the  person 
accused  was  responsible  in  estate  for  the  dam- 
ages to  be  adjudged,  the  imagination  and  zeal 
and  triumph  of  the  accuser  seem  to  have  been 
materially  enhanced.  There  was  little  to  dis- 
courage chronic  litigants,  since  aside  from 
"  just  damages  to  the  party  wronged  " — usually 
adjudged  nominal, — the  maximum  fine  for  a 
vexatious  suit  was  forty  shillings. 


I38  ROGER  LUDLOW 

In  the  last  days  of  his  nineteen  years  of  ser- 
vice to  Connecticut,  Ludlow  was  made  a  vic- 
tim of  one  of  these  accusations,  in  a  suit 
entitled 

"  Thomas  Staples  of  Fairfield,  plant., 
Mr.  Rogger  Ludlow,  late  of  Fairfield,  defendt," 

tried  before  the  Court  at  New  Haven,  May  29 
and  October  18,  1654. 

The  report  of  this  trial,  with  the  testimony 
of  witnesses  in  some  of  its  questionable  de- 
tails, covers  fourteen  pages  of  vol.  i.  of  the 
New  Haven  colonial  records. 

There  were  three  charges  in  the  complaint : 

1.  That  Ludlow  had  said  that  Staples s  wife 
had  laid  herself  under  new  suspicion  of  be- 
ing a  witch. 

2.  That  Knapp's  wife  (hanged  for  witchcraft) 
had  told  him  that  Goodwife  Staples  was  a 
witch. 

3.  That  Ludlow  had  slandered  her  by  saying 
she  made  a  trade  of  lying. 

In  his  absence,  Ludlow's  attorney  and  friend, 
Ensign  Bryan,  made  a  defence,  in  which  the 
testimony  of  seventeen  witnesses  was  given, 
showing  to  the  satisfaction  of  any  impartial 
tribunal  of  present-day  experience,  that  what 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  139 

Ludlow  said  of  Goodwife  Staples  being  a 
witch  was  true  upon  her  own  statements  to 
her  friends  and  neighbors,  and  that  he  said  he 
thought  them  not  true  ;  but  the  learned  judges 
found  against  him,  and  ordered  him  to  pay  to 
Staples,  "  by  way  of  fine  for  reparation  of  his 
wiue's  name,"  on  the  first  charge,  "  tenn 
pounds,  and  for  his  trouble  and  charge  in  fol- 
lowing the  suit,  five  pounds  more." 

The  second  charge  was  dropped ;  but  in  the 
following  October  the  Court  fined  Ludlow — 
whose  attorney  made  no  defence — ten  pounds 
more,  to  be  paid  to  Staples  "  toward  ye  re- 
pairing his  wiue's  name,"  on  Ludlow's  alleged 
charge  that  she  "  had  gone  on  in  a  tract  of 
lying."  As  we  find  a  Mrs.  Staples  under  indict- 
ment at  Fairfield,  several  years  later,  for  "fa- 
miliarity with  Satan,"  Thomas's  damages  would 
not  seem  to  have  gone  far  toward  "  repairing 
his  wife's  name."  Whether  she  escaped,  after 
being  bound  hand  and  foot  and  put  into  the 
water,  by  floating,  as  Mercy  Disborough  and 
Elizabeth  Clawson  did,  who  were  also  indicted 
for  like  diabolism,  is  not  told  in  the  history  of 
the  time.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this 
suit  for  slander  against  Ludlow  for  some  hasty 
and  indiscreet  words,  spoken  to  some  friends 


140  ROGER  LUDLOW 

"  in  a  confidential  way,"  as  one  of  them  testi- 
fied, and  on  a  burning  topic  of  the  hour,  falling 
in  the  midst  of  bitter  disappointment  and 
anxieties  about  public  affairs,  counted  with 
other  things  in  his  final  resolution  to  leave  the 
country. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

Ludlow's  Departure  from  Connecticut — Its  Causes — Day's  State- 
ment— Arrival  in  England — Return  to  Ireland — Settlement  at 
Dublin — Services  There — Cromwell's  Preference — Magistrate — 
Commissioner  of  Forfeited  Estates — His  Associates — Pepys— 
Corbett — Cooke — Reading — Allen — Carterett — Order  of  Lord 
Deputy  and  Council — Master  in  Chancery  —  Last  Record  of 
Service,  December  16,  1659 — Death  of  his  Wife — Resident  of 
St.  Michan's  Parish  in  1664,  at  Age  of  74 — Estimate  of  his 
Qualities  and  Achievements — Brinley's  Inscription — The  State 
— Its  Capitol — Its  Honor  to  Hooker,  Davenport,  Trumbull, 
Sherman — Its  Duty  to  Ludlow — Its  Opportunity. 

AT  threescore  and  four  years  of  age,  and 
after  twenty-four  years  of  distinguished  service 
in  New  England,  Ludlow  carried  out  his  de- 
claration to  the  Massachusetts  General  Court, 
of  twenty-two  years  before,  to  return  into  Eng- 
land. The  causes  of  his  removal  are  not  all 
known  or  understood,  and  never  may  be ;  but 
it  is  certain  that  they  culminated  in  the  refusal, 
both  of  the  Connecticut  and  the  New  Haven 
colony,  to  come  to  his 'support  in  the  presence 
of  a  war  which  threatened  the  destruction  of 

141 


H2  ROGER  LUDLOW 

Fairfield,  and  the  criticism  which  followed  his 
election  by  its  people  as  a  commander  of  the 
militia  there,  an  office  which  he  thought  it  was 
his  right  and  duty  to  assume  in  the  emer- 
gency, under  authority  in  military  matters  pre- 
viously granted  him  by  the  General  Court  of 
Connecticut,  and  a  post  of  honor  which  pa- 
triotism and  loyalty  to  his  friends  and  towns- 
men compelled  him  to  accept.  Little  did  he 
dream,  as  he  drilled  his  handful  of  men  on  the 
village  green  that  they  might  prosecute  what 
all  believed  to  be  a  righteous  war  in  defence  of 
their  families  and  homes,  that  he  was  inviting 
the  condemnation  of  his  brethren  and  long- 
time associates  in  Court  and  Council,  and 
charges  of  insurrection  at  their  hands. 

Day,  in  his  note  on  Ludlow,  assigns  these 
reasons  for  his  departure  : 

"  The  reasons  which  led  to  this  sudden  but  voluntary 
exile  are  as  follows  :  In  that  year  the  colony  was  alarmed 
by  fears  of  Dutch  and  Indian  hostilities  ;  and  Stamford 
and  Fairfield,  then  frontier  towns,  were  thrown  into  an 
agony  of  apprehension.  Entreating  the  New  Haven 
colony  for  troops  and  assistance,  they  were  refused  ;  and 
losing  all  patience,  they  resolved  to  raise  troops  inde- 
pendently of  the  colony,  and  to  defend  their  own  borders, 
and  carry  on  the  war  themselves.  Roger  Ludlow  was 
appointed  commander-in-chief.  In  all  this  there  seems 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  143 

to  have  been  no  thought  of  sedition,  but  only  the  impul- 
sive action  of  a  town,  who,  foreseeing  their  own  immi- 
nent peril,  and  hopeless  of  receiving  the  needed  aid  from 
a  source  whence  they  had  a  right  to  expect  it,  resolved 
to  arm  in  their  own  defence.  The  government  of  Con- 
necticut, however,  did  not  view  it  in  that  light,  but  treat- 
ing it  as  a  matter  of  insubordination,  if  not  of  open 
revolt,  proceeded  to  deal  with  the  principal  movers  in 
the  affair  as  '  fomenters  of  insurrection.' 

"  Ludlow,  although  not  openly  dealt  with,  had  been 
foremost  among  those  who  were  for  prosecuting  the  war 
against  the  Dutch.  He  had  also  seriously  compromised 
himself  by  his  hasty  and  unadvised  acceptance  of  the 
command  of  the  Fairfield  forces,  without  legal  appoint- 
ment. He  felt  that  he  had,  without  any  moral  guilt,  in- 
curred the  displeasure  of  the  colony,  and  that  unless  he 
should  make  some  humiliating  concessions,  his  behavior 
would  not  be  likely  to  escape  public  censure.  It  was 
quite  evident  that  his  popularity  had  reached  the  meri- 
dian. Proud  and  sensitive  to  a  high  degree,  he  brooded 
over  the  change  that  had  taken  place  in  his  prospects, 
as  well  for  promotion  as  for  usefulness,  .  .  .  and  at 
last  came  to  the  conclusion,  but  not  without  many  keen  re- 
grets, to  leave  the  colony  where  he  held  so  conspicuous 
a  place  for  nineteen  years." 

Count  all  these  factors  in  his  leave-taking  as 
verities,  and  add  to  them  those  that  tradition 
or  inference  may  warrant :  that  he  felt  the 
scandal  from  the  Staples  suit  ;  that  he  had  lost 
in  some  degree  his  prestige  at  home,  in  public 


144  ROGER  LUDLOW 

and  private  estimation  ;  that  he  longed  to  re- 
sume relations  with  his  kindred  and  friends  in 
England,  to  return  to  the  environment  of  his 
earlier  life,  to  win  new  honors  in  the  field  of 
his  former  activities  ;  and  there  still  remains 
one  more  potent  than  all  others,  and  hitherto 
not  made  known,  to  wit,  that  Ludlow  prob- 
ably returned  at  the  instance  of  the  Lord  Pro- 
tector, Oliver  Cromwell. 

The  early  writers  of  colonial  history,  lacking 
the  desire  or  opportunity  for  research,  had  this 
only  to  say  of  Ludlow  after  his  departure  from 
Connecticut, —  that  he  went  to  either  Virginia 
or  England,  and  that  his  later  fate  was  un- 
known. For  more  than  two  centuries  the 
shadows  hid  him  and  his  after-life  from  all 
men  save  the  historical  student  and  antiquary 
in  search  of  truths  of  more  interest  to  them, 
until  within  a  few  years  other  investigators — 
notably,  Waters,  in  his  Genealogical  Gleanings 
in  England ;  Stiles,  in  his  History  of  Ancient 
Windsor ;  Miss  Schenck,  in  her  History 
of  Fairfield,  with  its  genealogy  of  Ludlow's 
family  by  the  late  Joseph  Lemuel  Chester, 
D.C.L.,  LL.D.  ;  and  Beers,  in  his  "Roger 
Ludlow,"  Magazine  of  American  History,  vol. 
viii. —  have  winnowed  the  truth  from  rumors 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  145 

and  traditions  and  brought  to  light  additional 
information  of  value. 

Something  of  Ludlow's  lineage,  of  his  do- 
mestic relationships,  of  his  education,  his  early 
interest  in  colonial  enterprises,  his  coming 
hither,  his  services  in  New  England,  his  de- 
parture and  its  causes,  and  his  return  to  Old 
England,  were  made  known  ;  but  many  of  the 
statements  as  to  his  later  career  in  his  native 
land  are  based  on  inference  and  conjecture, 
and  the  actual  record  of  his  service  was  not 
discovered  or  set  forth  in  these  investiga- 
tions. 

Ludlow  left  Fairfield  in  April  or  May,  1654, 
and  after  confiscation  and  sale  of  the  vessel  he 
first  chartered  (for  previous  illicit  trading  by 
its  captain,  at  Virginia  and  with  the  Dutch) 
by  the  New  Haven  authorities,  he  sailed  in 
another  vessel,  with  his  family,  to  Virginia  to 
visit  his  brother,  a  man  of  position  and  large 
estate  in  that  colony,  as  has  been  noted. 
From  Virginia  he  sailed  for  Ireland,  and  cross- 
ing over  to  England  he  returned  to  Ireland  in 
September,  1654,  as  certified  in  the  memoirs 
of  his  kinsman,  Sir  Edmund  Ludlow, —  then 
Lieutenant-General  of  the  forces  in  Ireland 
under  Cromwell  —  who  says:  "Arrived  at 


146  ROGER  LUDLOW 

Holyhead.  Here  we  met  my  cousin  Roger 
Ludlow,  who  was  then  newly  landed  from 
Ireland,  but  finding  us  ready  to  set  sail  he  re- 
turned thither  with  us." 

It  is  now  possible,  from  authoritative  sources, 
—  the  printed  and  manuscript  records  and  re- 
ports at  London,  Dublin,  and  elsewhere, —  to 
set  forth  with  certainty  and  for  the  first  time 
the  facts  in  Ludlow's  life  after  his  departure 
from  the  colonies.  They  add  new  honor  to 
his  name,  and  justify  all  that  has  been  written 
of  his  ability  and  fitness,  not  only  for  his  ser- 
vice in  New  England,  but  among  his  peers  in 
the  complex  problems  that  taxed  the  learned 
jurists  of  Old  England. 

One  of  the  most  delicate  and  perplexing  of 
governmental  questions  that  arose  in  the  reign 
of  the  Lord  Protector  was  the  determination  of 
both  law  and  fact  in  the  valuation,  allotment, 
and  settlement  of  the  forfeited  estates  in  Ire- 
land, after  its  conquest  and  depopulation  by 
transportation  to  other  countries.  Only  men 
of  recognized  ability  and  honor  could  serve  in 
such  a  relation.  Who  could  be  trusted,  in 
those  perilous  times,  to  do  exact  justice,  to 
act  wisely  and  honestly,  when  so  many  mo- 
mentous issues,  legal  and  equitable,  called  for 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  147 

adjudication  ?  Cromwell  nominated  these  dis- 
tinguished men  for  that  high  service,  and  they 
were  commissioned  by  the  Lord  Deputy  and 
Council  at  Dublin,  November  3,  1654:  Rich- 
ard Pepys,  Esq.,  Chief  Justice  of  the  Upper 
Bench  in  Ireland,  and  one  of  the  Council  ; 
Miles  Corbett,  Esq.,  one  of  the  Council ; 
John  Cooke,  Esq.  ;  John  Reading,  Esq.  ;  Wil- 
liam Allen,  Esq. ;  Roger  Ludlow,  Esq. ;  and 
Philip  Carterett,  Esq.  The  commission  was  a 
broad  one,  and  clothed  with  ample  powers  to 
receive,  hear,  and  determine  all  claims  in  and 
to  forfeited  lands  in  Ireland,  whether  of  the 
Irish  rebels ;  under  the  Acts  of  Parliament 
in  the  seventeenth  year  of  King  Charles's 
reign;  or  belonging  to  the  Crown  in  1630; 
or  "  out  of  any  of  the  lands,  tenements  or 
hereditaments  lately  belonging  to  any  arch- 
bishop, bishop,  dean,  dean  and  chapter  or 
other  officers  belonging  to  that  Hierarchy 
in  Ireland." 

There  is  a  significant  entry  in  the  records  of 
"  Commissions  and  Instructions  by  the  Lord 
Deputy  and  Council,"  in  Dublin,  which  defines 
Ludlow's  appointment  to  this  commission,  and 
marks  the  special  honor  conferred  upon  him 
within  three  months  after  his  return  from 


148  ROGER  LUDLOW 

America,  and  after  an  absence  of  twenty-four 
years. 

By  the  Lord  Deputy  and  Council, 

"  It  is  ordered  that  Roger  Ludlowe,  Esq.,  be  ap- 
pointed Commf  for  the  administration  of  justice  at  Dub- 
lin, and  likewise  for  the  adjudication  of  claymes,  and  to 
that  end  it  is  ordered  that  he  be  inserted  in  the  Respec- 
tive Commission  for  that  Purpose  ;  and  it  is  further  or- 
dered that  he  be  added  to  the  Commission  for  the 
administration  of  justice  in  the  County  of  Corke,  and 
inserted  in  the  Commission  for  the  Peace  of  the  said 
County,  to  the  end  he  may  act  in  the  administration  of 
justice  there  until  he  shall  be  otherwise  disposed  of  as 
there  may  be  occasion  for  the  most  advantage  of  the 
Commonwealth. 

"DUBLIN,  the  i8th  of  December,  1654. 

"  T.  H.  Cl.  Council." 

Ludlow  was  chosen  by  Cromwell  himself  to 
serve  on  this  important  commission,  his  Amer- 
ican reputation  being  ample  justification  for 
the  appointment ;  and  it  is  the  judgment  of 
students  and  critics  of  the  written  and  unwrit- 
ten history  of  that  time,  that  he  was  invited 
over  for  that  very  purpose. 

And  this  judgment  rests  upon  substantial 
evidence.  Cromwell  knew  well  and  held  in 
honor  the  Ludlow  family ;  they  were  men  of  his 
stamp,  of  whom  in  all  his  life  he  had  greatest 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  149 

need,  whether  at  Worcester  or  Westminster. 
Its  sons  had  laid  down  their  lives  in  the 
Puritan  cause.  Henry  Ludlow  had  rendered 
brilliant  service  in  the  Long  Parliament, 
"  made  up  of  the  very  flower  of  the  English 
gentry  and  the  educated  laity  "  (Morley).  Sir 
Edmund  Ludlow,  Member  of  Parliament,  one 
of  the  King's  judges,  stood  so  fast  in  Crom- 
well's esteem  that  he  made  him  Lieutenant- 
General  of  Horse,  civil  commissioner,  and 
Deputy  in  Ireland,  and  trusted  him  in  the  most 
important  relations,  public  and  private.  No 
man  in  England  knew  better  the  merits  of  the 
Puritan  leaders  in  New  England — among 
whom  he  counted  many  acquaintances  and 
friends — than  Cromwell,  and  when  need  came 
for  the  Irish  commission  he  made  choice  of 
another  member  of  the  Ludlow  family,  one  of 
the  founders  of  the  Puritan  state  abroad,  and 
made  him  a  member  by  a  special  order. 

This  preferment  and  appointment  were  also 
but  incidents  of  a  favorite  scheme  of  the  Lord 
Protector's,  the  repopulation  of  Ireland,  after 
the  conquest,  and  confiscation  of  estates,  by 
men  of  the  Puritan  order ;  and  to  accomplish 
this  result  he  made  the  most  strenuous  efforts. 
The  conditions  in  New  England  favored  the 


ISO  ROGER  LUDLOW 

plan.  Barren  soil,  cold  climate,  small  capital, 
few  products  for  exportation,  and  the  lessened 
immigration  after  1640  made  life  hard  and  la- 
bor unprofitable,  and  the  unrest  and  discontent 
ripened  into  removals  and  attempts  to  remove 
to  other  lands. 

Take,  for  illustration,  the  energetic  effort  of 
Lord  Say  and  Sele  to  get  settlers  to  Old  Prov- 
idence Island,  which  brought  forth  Winthrop's 
protest ;  the  schemes  of  Humphrey  and  Vines 
to  withdraw  people  to  the  West  Indies;  the 
inquiries  as  to  Virginia  and  the  Caribbees  ;  the 
return  of  many  to  the  mother  country,  some 
men  of  chief  rank,  as  Winthrop  says  in  his 
journal,  and  the  remonstrances  of  the  colonial 
authorities  against  removals  from  their  juris- 
dictions. 

Cromwell  undertook  the  task  of  bringing 
over  the  New  England  people  to  settle  in  Ire- 
land in  a  systematic  way.  He  wrote  letters 
to  prominent  men  and  sent  over  emissaries- 
emigration  agents  —  with  their  pleas  and  pro- 
spectuses. He  negotiated  with  John  Cotton 
of  Boston,  William  Cobbet  of  Lynn,  William 
Hooke  of  New  Haven,  and  Samuel  Desbor- 
oughand  William  Leeteof  Guilford,  while  Scot- 
tish captives  and  Irish  children  were  being  sent 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  151 

to  New  England  and  Virginia  to  be  sold  as 
slaves,  under  his  orders. 

Ample  proof  that  Cromwell  had  a  general 
emigration  movement  in  view,  and  that  he 
held  out  inducements  to  prominent  men  in 
New  England  who  were  to  lead  it,  is  shown  in 
an  answer  to  one  of  his  letters,  December  31, 
1650.  Evidence  enough  is  this  also  of  Crom- 
well's influence,  and  that  his  propositions  had 
gone  far  toward  consideration.  But  the  Puri- 
tan in  Massachusetts  and  elsewhere  in  New 
England  in  1650  had  had  his  lesson  ;  he  was  an 
apt  scholar  in  Cromwellian  history. 

These  are  the  conditions  of  their  emigration 
to  Ireland  for  "  enjoying  the  Lord  in  his  ordi- 
nances," which  Peter  Bulkley  of  Concord, 
Thomas  Cobbet  and  Samuel  Whiting  of 

o 

Lynn,  John  Knowles  of  Watertown,  Daniel 
Dennison  of  Boston,  and  John  Tuttle  of 
Ipswich  set  down  in  their  answer  to  Crom- 
well's urgent  invitation  :  (i)  The  same  liberty 
of  worship  that  they  had  in  New  England  to 
be  established  by  the  State  of  England ;  (2) 
proper  outward  encouragements  in  houses  and 
lands  by  Parliament  or  the  Council  of  State  ; 
(3)  land  for  free  schools  and  colleges ;  (4)  free 
choice  of  a  military  governor  from  themselves 


152  ROGER  LUDLOW 

or  of  nomination  by  them  of  some  other  per- 
son ;  (5)  land  in  a  healthful  part  of  Ireland ; 
(6)  assistance  "  in  regard  of  the  meanness  and 
inability  of  those  godly  persons  who  had  or 
might  join  them  to  transport  themselves  "  ;  (7) 
freedom  for  some  years  from  public  charges ; 
(8)  to  have  no  Irish  "but  such  as  we  shall  like 
of  "  inhabit  among  them  ;  (9)  convenient  time 
to  transport  themselves.  The  conditions  were 
not  accepted,  for  the  reason  that  Cromwell 
had  no  authority  to  do  it,  and  what  Parliament 
might  do  was  problematical.  The  General 
Court  ended  the  machinations  in  Massachu- 
setts, in  a  letter,  October  21,  1651,  to  the  Lord 
General,  "  to  the  end  that  no  private  informa- 
tion might  occasion  him  to  prejudice  the  col- 
ony by  inviting  over  many  of  the  inhabitants 
to  be  transplanted  to  Ireland." 

After  the  failure  to  colonize  from  Massachu- 
setts, special  efforts  were  made  in  New  Haven 
through  Hooke,  Desborough,  and  Leete,  which 
did  not  cease  until  October,  1654  (six  months 
after  Roger  Ludlow  left  Fairfield),  but  with- 
out notable  results  in  migration  to  the  "  conve- 
nient lands  fit  for  tillage,  and  secure  and 
healthful  location  near  the  coast  towns" 
[Irish.] 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  153 

And  even  then  the  project  of  colonization 
elsewhere  was  renewed,  urgent  appeals  were 
made  for  colonists  for  Jamaica,  by  special 
messengers  of  Cromwell,  notably  by  Daniel 
Gookin,  once  a  member  of  the  Massachusetts 
General  Court ;  and  the  agitation  went  on 
after  the  New  Haven  General  Court,  at  the 
close  of  a  stormy  session  so  late  as  May,  1656, 
voted  that  "  though  they  cannot  but  acknowl- 
edge the  great  loue,  care  and  tender  respect  of 
his  highnes  the  Lord  Protector  to  New  Eng- 
land in  generall,  and  to  this  colonie  in  pticuler, 
yet  for  divers  reasons  they  cannot  conclude 
that  God  calls  them  to  a  present  remove 
theither"  [Jamaica.] 

There  is  therefore  strong  evidence  that,  with 
Cromwell's  knowledge  of  New  England  men, 
his  letters  to  them,  his  urgency  to  win  them 
to  his  court,  Roger  Ludlow,  at  a  critical  point 
in  his  fortunes,  was  called  to  an  office  at  Crom- 
well's behest,  in  which  he  found  profit  and 
honor  and  congenial  service. 

Ludlow  sat  as  a  member  during  the  whole 
course  of  the  first  Irish  commission,  from  1654 
to  1658,  as  shown  in  the  Receiver  General's 
accounts,  with  a  payment  entry  "  in  full  for  his 
good  services,  Sept.  22,  1658."  When  the 


154  ROGER  LUDLOW 

commission  ceased,  the  record  of  Ludlow  had 
been  of  such  high  degree  that  on  the  creation 
of  a  new  commission,  issued  directly  by  order 
of  the  Lord  Protector,  he  was  again  appointed, 
with  Miles  Corbett  only  from  the  old  commis- 
sion ;  and  his  other  associates  were  Sir  Gerrard 
Lowther,  Sir  John  Temple,  Sir  Robert  Mere- 
dith, James  Donellan,  John  Santry,  and 
Thomas  Fowles.  In  addition  to  these  respon- 
sible offices,  Ludlow  was  also  made  a  Master 
in  Chancery  in  Ireland,  a  very  honorable  and 
lucrative  post,  and  charged  with  the  perform- 
ance of  both  judicial  and  ministerial  duties  of 
importance. 

The  last  reference  to  any  public  service  of 
this  strong  man,  in  any  presently  known  and 
accessible  source,  appears  December  16,  1659; 
and  it  is  very  significant  when  it  is  recalled  that 
he  was  then  sixty-nine  years  old,  that  the  first 
Protector  was  dead,  that  the  second  Protector 
had  resigned,  and  that  within  five  months 
Charles  II.  was  on  the  throne. 

Receiver  -  General's  accounts,  1659-1660, 
page  1 20  : 

"  Dec.  16,  1659.  To  Mr  Jonathan  Ludlow  by  warr? 
dated  ye  i2th.  of  Dec',  1659,  the  sum  of  twenty  pounds 
for  ye  use  of  Roger  Ludlow  for  his  care  and  pains 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  155 

taken  in  several  publique  services  in  this  nacon,  and 
is  in  ful  satisfaVon  of  all  past  services  done  by  him 
for  ye  Commonwealth." 

With  these  new  facts  in  the  closing  years  of 
Ludlow's  life,  after  his  departure  from  Connec- 
ticut, which  patient  and  exhaustive  investiga- 
tion has  disclosed,  a  complete  demonstration  is 
made  of  his  remarkable  ability  and  readiness 
to  deal  with  the  vital  questions  of  government, 
the  great  problems  of  law  and  equity,  of  civil  and 
judicial  administration,  not  alone  in  the  storm 
of  debate  and  decision  in  the  colonial  courts 
and  meetings,  but  in  the  quiet  and  grave  delib- 
erations and  judgments  of  the  tribunals  of  Old 
England,  with  men  learned  in  the  law  and 
chosen  for  their  special  qualifications  for  his 
associates. 

All  that  can  now  be  made  known,  all  that 
may  ever  be  known  of  Ludlow,  other. than 
what  has. been  herein  written  from  the  earlier 
and  newly  discovered  sources  of  information, 
is  set  forth  in  the  entries  and  records  of  Saint 
Michan's  Parish  in  Dublin.  That  he  and  his 
family  became  residents  there  on  their  arrival 
from  America  in  1654,  there  is  no  doubt  :  he  is 
named  in  the  will  of  his  brother  George,  made 
in  Virginia  in  1655,  and  in  which  some  of 


156  ROGER  LUDLOW 

Roger's  children  were  made  legatees,  as  "at 
present  living  in  Dublin " ;  and  that  he  was 
still  living  there  at  the  age  of  seventy  and 
four  years  is  clearly  proved  by  an  entry 
in  the  list  of  baptisms,  marriages,  and  burials 
of  Saint  Michan's  Parish  church,  August  18, 
1 663 -September  13,  1664.  It  is  this  :  "  1664, 
June  3.  Burial,  Mary  Ludlow,  wife  to  Roger 
Ludlow,  Esq."  Two  things  are  evident  from 
this  entry  :  that  Ludlow  was  then  alive,  as  it 
was  the  invariable  practice  to  state  that  the  de- 
ceased was  either  a  widow  or  a  widower  if  such 
were  the  case ;  and  that  he  was  then  a  resident 
in  the  parish,  with  his  wife,  or  it  would  have 
been  noted  that  the  deceased's  husband  was  not 
resident  there.  No  further  trace  of  Ludlow 
can  now  be  found ;  and  while  it  is  believed  that 
he  died  in  Dublin  between  1664  and  1668, 
Saint  Michan's  records  of  those  years  are  miss- 
ing, as  are  those  at  Holyhead,  where  mere  tra- 
dition holds  that  he  may  have  at  last  removed, 
so  the  evidence  of  the  date  of  his  death  and 
burial  place  seems  surely  lost,  and  in  these 
matters  the  present  record  of  him  must  end 
with  Brinley's  words,  written  a  generation  ago  : 
"  No  authority  yet  seen  records  his  death  or 
points  to  his  grave." 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  157 

Any  study  or  analysis  of  a  human  character 
which  sees  only  its  sunshine,  not  its  shadows, 
its  virtues,  not  its  vices,  its  excellences,  not 
its  errors,  must  stand  charged  with  a  partiality, 
a  prepossession  which  impairs  its  interest  and 
value.  Facts  tell  us  who  Ludlow  was,  and 
what  he  did ;  and  they  need  no  embellish- 
ment ;  but  to  complete  the  story  of  his  career, 
it  seems  fitting  to  ask  what  was  said  of  him  in 
the  camp  of  his  critics,  as  well  as  in  the  home 
of  his  friends. 

What  of  him  thought  Winthrop  and  Dud- 
ley, Haynes  and  Hopkins,  Eaton  and  Good- 
year, the  men  who  saw  most  of  him  in  his 
career  in  the  two  colonies  ?  Winthrop  simply 
wrote  in  his  journal  that  Ludlow  on  one  occa- 
sion "grew  into  a  passion";  Dudley  stood 
with  him  in  the  early  magisterial  regime  in 
Massachusetts  ;  Haynes,  his  successful  rival 
in  politics,  gave  him  precedence  in  the  courts  ; 
Hopkins  censured  him  for  taking  up  Un- 
quowa,  chiefly  because  he  did  not  ask  per- 
mission of  the  Court  in  advance  ;  Eaton  and 
Goodyear  called  him  a  fomenter  of  insurrec- 
tion in  his  vigorous  preparations  for  the  de- 
fence of  Fairfield ;  possibly  some  of  his 
associates  in  the  General  Court  at  Hartford 


158  ROGER  LUDLOW 

halted  at  his  impulsive  action  ;  and  Thomas 
Staples  sued  him  for  slander,  for  a  bit  of  gos- 
sip repeated  in  confidence  to  some  friends 
(Davenports)  in  New  Haven.  This  is  what 
the  records  disclose  of  weakness  or  of  error  in 
a  public  life  of  twenty-five  years.  With  the  cir- 
cumstances in  each  instance  which  have  been 
told  from  the  records,  what  is  the  utmost  that 
may  be  said  derogatory  to  the  name  and  service 
of  Ludlow  ? 

That  he  was  zealous  for  his  rights,  and  jeal- 
ous of  his  honors ;  that  he  was  of  imperious 
temper,  and  impatient  of  criticism  ;  that  he 
was  ready — too  ready — to  assume  responsibil- 
ity ;  that  he  misinterpreted  public  sentiment 
through  impetuosity  ;  that  he  was  over-con- 
fident, and  did  not  bridle  his  tongue  with 
discretion. 

Grant  all  these  things,  and  they  were  merely 
faults  of  temperament.  What  are  they  worth 
in  the  presence  of  all  he  actually  accomplished 
for  the  Commonwealth  of  Connecticut?  In 
summing  up  his  qualities,  one  recalls  a  strong 
man  in  our  time  much  misunderstood,  of  whose 
character  this  analysis  is  given  : 

"  There  was  intellectual  power,  self-reliance, 
an  iron  will,  unbending  integrity,  devoted 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  159 

patriotism,  unusual  capacity  for  work,  adaptabil- 
ity to  new  duties,  and  an  intense  enthusiasm 
for  whatever  cause  he  espoused." 

Add  to  these  supreme  qualities  of  leadership, 
the  cardinal  virtues  of  honesty  and  honor  in 
every  public  or  private  transaction,  charity  and 
good-will  toward  his  friends  and  neighbors, 
and  the  love  and  affection  which  crowned  his 
home-life  with  devotion  to  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren, and  the  story  of  Roger  Ludlow,  so  far  as 
now  known  to  history,  is  written. 

Connecticut  builds  its  home  of  state,  its 
capitol  of  massive  strength  and  symmetry, 
dedicated  to  law  and  equity  and  justice,  on  the 
very  homesteads  of  its  first  settlers.  It  looks 
on  the  very  places  where  great  deeds  were 
done  and  the  first  history  was  written  :  north- 
ward, where  the  pioneers  from  Dorchester  held 
the  open  lands  in  the  Windsor  palisado  ;  west- 
ward, to  "  Pequannocke  and  beyond,"  where 
the  villages  in  the  wilderness  through  fear  and 
trembling  grew  to  vigorous  life ;  southward, 
toward  the  broad  haven  and  the  meadows  of 
the  Quinnipiac,  where  Davenport  and  his 
goodly  company  sat  down,  and  on  the  "  long 
river "  of  both  tragic  and  blessed  memories ; 


160  ROGER  LUDLOW 

and  eastward,  on  the  ancient  hills  which  saw 
Ludlow,  Hooker,  Stone,  and  Rossiter,  and  all 
the  pioneers,  with  their  wives  and  children,  on 
their  perilous  pilgrimage  hither. 

And  near  at  hand  run  the  broad  ways  where 
the  settlers  made  their  homes  in  the  three  ori- 
ginal towns ;  and  there  are  the  historic  places 
where  the  forefathers  went  forth  to  war,  where 
they  listened  to  the  preached  word,  where 
they  held  their  solemn  councils,  and  where  the 
constitution  was  adopted  ;  and  there,  too,  is 
the  God's  Acre,  restored  and  beautified  of  late 
by  their  children's  love,  where  many  of  them 
sleep. 

Connecticut  in  its  capitol  honors  some  of 
these  men  in  spirited  likenesses  from  the  sculp- 
tor's hand  ;  tells  its  cherished  traditions  in  tra- 
ceries and  reliefs  and  symbolisms  of  vine  and 
oak  and  classic  legend ;  hangs  the  portraits  of 
its  governors  along  its  walls ;  embodies  its 
story  of  1776  in  statues  of  Hale,  Putnam,  and 
Knowlton  ;  folds  with  reverent  hands  the  tat- 
tered battle  flags  of  the  Civil  War  that  move 
all  hearts  to  tears ;  touches  tenderly  the  guns 
that  echo  the  victories  on  land  and  sea  ;  and 
invokes  through  its  Commission  of  Sculpture 
the  aid  of  highest  art  further  to  commemorate 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  161 

historic  deeds.  All  this  has  the  State  done  to 
preserve  and  perpetuate  in  part  the  memories 
of  men  who  made  her  foremost  in  the  history 
of  the  Republic  ;  and  still  it  waits  duly  to  honor 
him  who,  among  the  greatest,  helped  to  lay 
the  foundations  of  the  State  itself,  as  told  in 
the  records  of  his  time. 

Empty  niches,  with  canopies  and  pedestals 
complete,  there  are  along  the  capitol  facades, 
awaiting  new  forms  in  real  or  fancied  sem- 
blance, and  in  the  portal  arches  are  the  shields 
for  inscription  to  tell  the  deeds  now  seemingly 
forgotten. 

What  act  more  befitting,  what  privilege  or 
duty  more  instant  in  its  merits,  than  that  the 
Commonwealth  shall  set  in  one  of  those  places 
of  honor  a  statue,  in  granite  or  in  marble,  of 
traditional  or  actual  resemblance ;  as  others 
are,  or  of  the  ideal  lawyer  of  his  age,  and 
name  it  Roger  Ludlow  ? 

Could  the  chiselled  lips  of  Hooker  and 
Davenport,  Trumbull  and  Sherman,  already 
standing  there,  be  touched  with  life,  they 
would  bid  him  welcome  as  peer,  companion, 
friend,  "  To  the  state  a  Counsellor  full  Deare," 
and  ask  that  there  be  written,  on  the  vacant 
portal  shield,  these  words  : 


162  ROGER  LUDLOW 


To  the 
MEMORY 

of 

ROGER    LUDLOW 

Who 

Gave  to  Connecticut 
a  Body  of  Laws 

and  the 
First  Written  Constitution 

Which  under  God 
Acknowledged  no  Power 

Superior  to 
the  Supreme  Power 

of  the 
Commonwealth 


(From  Brinleys  "  Reprint  Laws  of  Connecticut,  1673"} 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   NOTES. 

Acknowledgment  is  here  made  to  Benjamin 
Franklin  Stevens,  Esquire,  of  London,  England, 
an  American  of  Puritan  lineage,  son  of  the  founder 
of  the  Vermont  Historical  Society,  author  of  Fac- 
similes of  Manuscripts  in  European  Archives  Relating 
to  America,  so  invaluable  to  all  students,  readers, 
and  writers  of  history ;  whose  services  always  have 
been  generously  accorded  to  American  investigators, 
and  through  whose  good  offices  the  important  facts 
in  Ludlow's  life  after  his  departure  from  Connecticut 
have  been  made  available. 

Prerogative  Grant  Index — Prerogative  Will  Book — 
Diocese  of  Cork  Wills — Cork  Marriage  License  Bonds — 
Bill  Book  Commonwealth  Period — Commissions  and  In- 
structions by  the  Lord  Deputy  and  Council — Receiver- 
General's  Accounts  —  Exchequer  and  Patent  Rolls — 
Chancery  Bills  and  Decrees  —  Saint  Michan's  Parish 
Church  Records.  (All  at  Dublin,  Ireland.) 

Hanaper  Papers — Calendar  Inner  Temple  Records — 
Historical  Manuscripts  Commission  Report,  vol.  2  (Or- 
monde Manuscripts) — Diet,  of  Nat.  Biog. — Calendar  of 
Colonial  Papers,  America  and  West  Indies — Gentry  of 
Anglesea — Foster's  Alumni  Oxonienses — Nelson's  Sir 

163 


164  ROGER  LUDLOW 

George  Carteret — Connecticut  Colonial  Records,  vol.  i 
— New  Haven  Colonial  Records,  1638-53-69 — Whit- 
more's  Colonial  Laws  of  Massachusetts — New  England's 
Memorial — Mourt's  Relation — Clap's  Memoir — Blake's 
Annals — Winthrop's  Journal — Memo.  History  of  Bos- 
ton— Stilus's  History  of  Ancient  Windsor  —  Mason's 
Brief  History  of  Pequot  War — Records  of  the  Governor 
and  Company  of  Massachusetts  Bay — Massachusetts 
Colonial  Records,  vol.  i — Massachusetts  Hist.  Coll. — 
Schenck's  History  of  Fairfield — Waters's  Genealogical 
Gleanings  in  England  (Reg.  41  : 42  : 43) — Sir  Edmund 
Ludlovv's  Memoirs  (1699) — Memo.  History  Hartford 
County — Trumbull's  Blue  Laws,  False  and  True — Trum- 
bull's  Constitutions  of  Connecticut — Trumbull's  Life  of 
Lechford — Commissioners'  Notes  on  Revisions  of  Laws 
of  Connecticut — Palfrey's  History  of  New  England — 
Elliott's  History  of  New  England — Neal's  History 
of  the  Puritans — Hawes's  Centennial  Address — Bush- 
nell's  Historical  Estimate  —  Bradford's  History  of 
Plymouth  Plantation  —  Sparks's  American  Biography 
(Mason,  Hutchinson,  Stiles)  —  Fiske's  Beginnings  of 
New  England — Fiske's  Dutch  and  Quaker  Colonies — 
Histories  of  Connecticut  (Trumbull,  Hollister,  De  For- 
est, Sanford,  Johnson) — O'Callaghan's  New  Netherlands 
— Larned's  History  of  Ready  Reference  (Topics  :  Con- 
necticut, Massachusetts,  New  England,  Puritan,  Nether- 
lands)— Records  of  the  United  Colonies — History  of 
Dorchester — Walker's  Thomas  Hooker,  and  First  Church 
in  Hartford  —  Twichell's  John  Winthrop  —  Wolcott's 
Memoir  Relating  to  Connecticut — Hazard's  State  Papers 
— Campbell's  Puritan  in  England,  Holland,  and  Amer- 
ica— Historic  Towns  of  New  England  (Talcott's 


THE  COLONIAL  LAWMAKER.  165 

Hartford)— A  Walk  about  Hartford  in  1640  (Talcott) — 
Bliss's  Side  Glimpse's  from  Colonial  Meeting  House 
— Parkman's  Jesuits  in  North  America,  and  French 
Regime  in  Canada — Jones's  Life  and  Work  of  Thomas 
Dudley — Robinson's  (H.  C.)  Constitutional  History  of 
Connecticut,  and  Reunion  Address  in  1889 — Byington's 
Puritan  in  England  and  New  England,  and  The  Puritan 
as  Colonist  and  Reformer  —  Prince's  New  England 
Chronology  (Annals) — Lodge's  Colonial  Period — Beers's 
Roger  Ludlowe,  Mag.  of  American  History — Adams's 
Emancipation  of  Massachusetts — De  Tocqueville's  De- 
mocracy in  America — Bancroft's  History  of  the  United 
States — Green's  Short  History  of  English  People — Har- 
per's Marches  of  Wales — Scull,  and  Ludlow — Bruges's 
Pedigree  of  the  Ludlows  of  Hill  Deverill — Baker's  Lud- 
low (Town  and  Neighborhood) — Wright's  Antiquities 
of  Ludlow — Brown's  Pilgrim  Fathers  and  their  Puritan 
Successors — Bacon's  Constitutional  History  of  Connecti- 
cut— Young's  Chronicles  of  the  First  Planters — Hutchin- 
son's  History  of  Massachusetts — Hamersley's  Connecti- 
cut :  Origin  of  Courts  and  Laws — Drake's  History  and 
Antiquities  of  Boston — Massachusetts  Body  of  Liberties 
— Emerson's  Education  in  Massachusetts  :  its  Early  Legis- 
lation and  History — Lechford's  Plaine  Dealing;  or  Newes 
from  New  England — Ellis's  Puritan  Age  in  Massachusetts 
— Goodwin's  Pilgrim  Republic — Hoar's  The  Lawyer  and 
the  State — Day's  Note  on  Ludlow — Town  Records, 
Hartford,  Windsor,  and  Fairfield — Memorial  Addresses, 
J.  H.  Hayden — Commonwealth  v.  Roxbury  (9  Gray, 
480) — Howe's  Puritan  Republic — Webster  v.  Harwinton 
(36  Conn.,  131)  —  Records  Massachusetts  Court  of 
Assistants — Gorham's  Life  of  Stanton — Lowell's  Witch- 


166  ROGER  LUDLOW 

craft,  and  New  England  Two  Centuries  Ago — Haw- 
thorne's Scarlet  Letter — Baldwin's  Three  Constitutions 
of  Connecticut — Cooley's  Constitutional  Limitations — 
Roger  Williams  (Sparks's  American  Biography) — Burt's 
First  Century  History  of  Springfield — Latimer's  Salem — 
State  v.  Williams,  Treasurer  (68  Conn.,  131). 


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